BENJAMIN JONSON

 

BENJAMIN JONSON

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Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 18 August [O.S. 6 August] 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."

Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642).

While he is now remembered primarily for his satirical comedies, he also distinguished himself as a poet, preeminent writer of masques, erudite defender of his work, and the originator of English literary criticism.

His writings followed the classical style and depicted farcical characters, absurdity and contemporary lives of his time. A satiric historian of his era, Jonson showcased the imprudence and humour of his time with keen observation; so much so, that he is considered as one of the eminent writers of the 17th-century.

Ben Jonson frequently utilized literary devices including metaphor, allusion, apostrophe, parallelism, rhetorical questions, personification, and satire throughout his works, particularly in poems like "On My First Son" and "To Penshurst," often using them to express complex emotions and ideas with vivid imagery and direct language.

·        Metaphor: In "On My First Son," the line "Here doth lye Ben Jonson his best peece of poetrie" compares the deceased son to Jonson's greatest poetic creation, highlighting his immense loss. 

·        Allusion: "To Penshurst" features allusions to the Muses, Greek goddesses associated with artistic inspiration, to praise the beauty of the Penshurst estate. 

·        Apostrophe: Jonson directly addresses the Penshurst estate as if it were a person, using apostrophe to express admiration for its grandeur. 

·       Parallelism: In many of his poems, Jonson uses parallel sentence structures to create rhythm and emphasis. 

·       Rhetorical Question: "On My First Son" employs rhetorical questions to grapple with the pain of losing his child, questioning why he should grieve when his son is now free from earthly suffering. 

·       Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human entities, like describing nature as if it has emotions, is a common feature in Jonson's poetry. 

·       Satire: Jonson often used satire in his plays and some poems to critique societal behaviors and hypocrisy through humor and exaggeration. 

 

Jonson's poems of “The Forest” also appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonson's aristocratic supporters, but the most famous are his country-house poem “To Penshurst” and the poem “To Celia” (“Come, my Celia, let us prove”) that appears also in Volpone.

Famous works:

Writings	Writings
The Alchemist	Christmas, His Masque
Every Man in His Humour	To Penshurst
Epicœne, or The Silent Woman
Bartholomew Fair	A Tale of a Tub
Volpone	Sejanus
The Masque of Blackness	The Masque of Beauty
Eastward Ho	Ben Jonson Folios
Cynthia ́s Revels	Beowulf poetry
To Celia	Catiline His Conspiracy
The Devil Is an Ass	Hymenaei
The Masque of Queens	Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours