Ben Jonson studied under Camden at Westminster School, labored as a bricklayer and dragged a pike in the United Provinces. By 1597 he was acting in London, where he was twice jailed for offending the authorities. Jonson composed plays and masques and made a bid for the laureateship with the publication of his "Works" in 1616. Recently discovered evidence suggests that Jonson admired Spenser more than had been traditionally supposed.
TEXT RECORDS:
1606Epithalamion.
1608Epithalamion.
1616The Golden Age Restored.
1619Heads of a Conversation betwixt the Famous Poet Ben Johnson, and William Drummond of Hawthornden.
1623To the Memory of my beloved, the Author Mr. William Shakespeare: and what he hath left us.
1632Epithalamion celebrating the Nuptials of Mr. Hierome Weston.
1635 ca.An Epigram to my Muse, the Lady Digby, on her Husband, Sir Kenelme Digby.
1635 ca.Timber, or Discoveries.
1641The Sad Shepherd: or a Tale of Robin Hood.
PUBLICATIONS:
The comical satyre of Every man out of his humor. 1600.
Every man in his humour. 1601.
The fountaine of selfe-love: or Cynthias revels. 1601.
Poetaster or the arraignment. 1602.
B. Jon: His part of King James his royall and magnificent entertainment. 1604.
Eastward hoe [with Chapman and Marston]. 1605.
Sejanus his fall. 1605.
Hymenaei: or the solemnities of masque, and barriers. 1606.
Volpone or the foxe. 1607.
The characters of two royall masques, the one of blacknesse, the other of beautie. 1608.
The description of a masque celebrating the marriage of John, Lord Ramsey. 1608.
Ben: Josnon, His case is altered. 1609.
The masque of queenes celebrated from the house of fame. 1609.
Cataline his conspiracy. 1611.
The alchemist. 1612.
A challenge at tilt. 1616.
The entertainment of the two kings of Great Britaine and Denmarke at Theobalds. 1616.
An entertainment of King James and Queene Anne at Theobalds. 1616.
Epicoene: or the silent woman. 1616.
Epigrammes. 1616.
The forrest. 1616.
The golden age restored. 1616.
The Irish masque. 1616.
Love freed from ignorance and folly. 1616.
Love restored. 1616.
Mercurie vindicated from the alchemists. 1616.
Oberon: the Faery prince. 1616.
A private entertainment of the King and Queen at Highgate. 1616.
The speeches at Prince Henries barriers. 1616.
The workes of Benjamin Jonson [includes the above]. 1616.
Lovers made men. A masque. 1617.
Epicoene, or the silent woman. A comodie. 1620.
The masque of augures. 1622.
Time vindicated to himselfe and to his honors. 1623.
Neptunes triumph for the returne of Albion. A masque. 1624.
The fortunate isles and their union. A masque. 1625.
Love's triumph through Callipolis. A masque. 1630.
Bartholomew fayre. The Divill is an asse. The staple of newes [Workes vol. 2]. 1631.
Chlorinda, Rites to Chloris and her nymphs. 1631.
The new inne: or the light heart. 1631.
The English grammar. 1640.
Execration against Vulcan, with divers epigrams. 1640.
The gypsies metamorphos'd. 1640.
Horace his art of poetrie. 1640.
The magnetique lady. 1640.
A tale of a tub. 1640.
The under-wood. 1640.
Workes [includes the above]. 1640.
Christmas his masque. 1641.
For the honour of Wales. 1641.
The kings entertainment at Welbeck. 1641.
Loves wel-come at Bolsover. 1641.
The masque of owles. 1641.
Newes from the new world discover'd in the moone. 1641.
Pans anniversarie: or the shepherds holy-day. 1641.
Pleasure reconciled to virtue. 1641.
The sad shepherd: or a tale of Robin Hood. 1641.
Timber: or discoveries made upon men and matter. 1641.
Works, ed. Peter Whalley. 7 vols, 1756.
Works, ed. C. H. Herford and P. Simpson. 11 vols, 1925-52.
Complete masques, ed. Steven Orgel. 1969.
Complete poems, ed. Ian Donaldson. 1975.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Catholic
Anglican
Dissenter
Westminster School
Poet Laureate
courtier
artisan
military
tutor
poet
dramatist
Edward Alleyn
Francis Bacon
Sir John Beaumont
Francis Beaumont
Richard Brome
Christopher Brooke
William Browne of Tavistock
William Camden
Thomas Carew
Rev. William Cartwright
Sir William Cavendish
George Chapman
Earl of Clarendon
Robert Cotton
Thomas Dekker
Rev. John Donne
Henry Chettle
Sir Kenelm Digby
Michael Drayton
William Drummond
Lucius Cary Falkland
John Fletcher
John Florio
Edmund Gayton
Sir Henry Goodere
William Habington
Bp. John Hacket
Herbert of Cherbury
William Herbert
Rev. Robert Herrick
Thomas Hobbes
Hugh Holland
Henry King
Shakerley Marmion
Rev. John Marston
Thomas May
Thomas Nashe
Henry Peacham
Sir Walter Raleigh
Thomas Randolph
Sir John Roe
Joseph Rutter
John Selden
William Shakespeare
James Shirley
John Taylor the Water Poet
John Weever
Henry Wotton
Countess of Pembroke
Countess of Rutland
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
Bodenham, Bel-vedere (1600); Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England (1662); Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675); John Aubrey, Brief Lives (1669-1696) ed. Clark (1898) 2:11-16; William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687); Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721); Gerard Langbaine, Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691); Blount, De re poetica (1694); Charles Gildon, Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (1699); Giles Jacob, Poetical Register (1719); Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); Lewis Theobald, "To Thomas Birch, on the Life of Jonson 10 August 1737" in Monthly Magazine 212 (February 1806) 40-41; Biographia Britannica (1747-66); "Life of Ben Jonson" London Magazine 22 (July 1753) 303-04 [portrait]; Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753); Life by Peter Whalley in Works (1756); "Ben Jonson" Literary Magazine or Universal Review 1 (August 1756) 169-71; "Life of Ben Jonson" Universal Magazine 24 (Supplement, 1759) 337-47 [portrait]; David Erskine Baker, Companion to the Play-House (1764); Thomas Percy, Reliques (1765); Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry (1774-81); "Life of Ben Jonson" Sentimental Magazine 3 (September 1775) 401-05; John Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); Philip Neve, Cursory Remarks on Ancient English Poets (1789) 39-43; George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry (1790; 1801); Isaac D'Israeli, "Ben Jonson" Curiosities of Literature (1793) 2:114-24; Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Samuel Egerton Brydges, Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800); Philip Neve, "Ben Jonson" Monthly Mirror 11 (January 1801) 22-24; Joseph Ritson, Bibliographia Poetica (1802) 259; William Oldys in Censura Literaria 1 (1805) 94-99; Peter L. Courtier, ed., Lyre of Love (1806); "Life of Ben Jonson" Monthly Mirror NS 2 (July 1807) 5-10 [portrait]; Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Isaac D'Israeli, "Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker" Quarrels of Authors (1814); Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses (1815); J. M. F. Dovaston, "On Shakespeare and Ben Jonson" Monthly Magazine 39 (March 1815) 123-24; John Hamilton Reynolds, "Ben Jonson" The Champion (4 May 1817) 142; Nathan Drake, in Shakespeare and his Times (1817; 1838); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); Retrospective Review 1 (1820) 181-200; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Biographical Magazine 1 (1829) [portrait]; "Ben Jonson's Works" Southern Review [Charleston] 6 (August 1830) 91-116; Richard Cattermole, Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836); "Jonsonian Readings" Southern Literary Messenger [Richmond] 5 (April 1839) 287-88; Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Edward Farr, Select Poetry, chiefly sacred, of the Reign of King James the First (1847); Mary Russell Mitford, "Ben Jonson" in Recollections (1852) 240-246; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); F. E. Schelling, "Ben Jonson and the Classical School" PMLA 13 (1898) 221-49; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); R. F. Patterson, Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond (1923); Old Westminsters (1928); Austin Warren, "Pope and Ben Jonson" MLN 45 (1930) 86-88; Mary E. McClain, The Epithalamions of Spenser and of Jonson: A Comparative Study (Master's thesis, University of Arizona, 1936); R. G. Noyes, "Ben Jonson's Masques in the 18th Century" Studies in Philology 33 (1936) 427-36; Thomas P. Harrison, "Jonson's The Sad Shepherd and Spenser" Modern Language Notes 58 (1943) 257-62; George Burke Johnston, Ben Jonson: Poet (1945); Bush, OHEL (1945); Jackson I. Cope, "Jonson's Reading of Spenser: The Genesis of a Poem" English Miscellany 10 (1959) 61-66; G. Parfitt, Ben Jonson: Public Poet and Private Man (1977); Norman Council, "Ben Jonson, Inigo Jones, and the Transformation of Tudor Chivalry" ELH 47 (1980) 259-75; Anne Barton, "Harking back to Elizabeth: Ben Jonson and Caroline Nostalgia" ELH 48 (1981) 706-31; Mark Eccles, "Brief Lives" Studies in Philology 79 (1982); David C. Judkins, The Non-Dramatic Works of Ben Jonson: a Reference Guide (1982); Richard Helgerson, Self-Crowned Laureates (1983); Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983); Timothy Cook, "Possible Recollection of Spenser in Jonson's 'Immortal Memory' Ode" Notes and Queries NS 32 (1985) 487; David Riggs, Ben Jonson: a Life (1989); Spenser Encyclopedia, "Jonson" (1990) 411-12; James A. Riddell and Stanley Stewart, Jonson's Spenser: Evidence and Historical Criticism (1995); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Ben Jonson:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
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