Biography EssayBy turns turbulent and weighty, scatological and refined, boisterous and delicate, Ben Jonson's works have always excited strong reactions among his readers and his playgoing audiences,...
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The English playwright and poet Ben Jonson (1572-1637) is best known for his satiric comedies. An immensely learned man with an irascible and domineering personality, he was, next to Shakespeare, the ...
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By turns turbulent and weighty, scatalogical and refined, boisterous and delicate, Ben Jonson's works have always excited strong reactions among his readers and his playgoing audiences, just as his pe...
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Although Ben Jonson is still best known as a dramatist, his significance as a poet is hard to overestimate. His influence helped transform English verse. His "plain style" made him a crucial figure in...
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In the following excerpt, Kernan focuses on Jonson's "comicall satyres," showing how the satirical and ironic modes are played out in the theme of alchemy and in the gulf between ...
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In the essay below, Jackson explores the relation between dramatic art and moral judgment in Jonson's plays. Jackson focuses on the theme of nobility and the recurrence of money symbolism to re...
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In the following essay, Greene claims that all of Jonson 's work is organized around two images: the circle, which implies harmony and equilibrium, and a center, which suggests the ruler or sol...
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In the following essay, Barton explores the links between real life and dramatic representation in Jonson's comical satires, suggesting that Jonson's satirical works were influenced by h...
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In the following essay, Evans examines the impact of patronage on Jonson's dramatic work, detecting in the plays Jonson's strategic self-advertisement and dramatic self-portraiture, as w...
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In the following essay, Maus explores the relationship between genre and economics in Jonson's work, suggesting that the "satiric economy" of the plays is absent from the allegori...
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In the following essay, Mebane explores an apparent contradiction between Jonson's conservative neoclassicism, as outlined in Discoveries, and his frequent use of "occult philosophy, ...
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In the following essay, MacLean discusses Jonson 's poems as observations on civilized society, stressing friendship between good men, the ideal relationship between prince and poet, and the so...
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In the following essay, Parfitt interprets Jonson's poems in light of the chief functions of his best verse, "energy, assuredness, and rhythmical alertness, " contrasting their te...
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In the following essay, Inglis investigates Jonson's love, religious, and social poetry in relation to the facts of the poet's life.
Given the eminence I ascribe to Jonson, it seems righ...
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In the following excerpt, Bamborough examines the stylistic, thematic, and idiosyncratic qualities of Jonson's poetry.
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Considering that he wrote the best-known lyric in the English language, ...
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In the following essay, Marotti reads Jonson's dramatic verse and masques along with his non-dramatic poetry in order to demonstrate the poet's stylistic virtuosity and his range between...
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In the following essay, Friedberg analyzes Jonson's poems in terms of the classical literary tradition.
Like Donne, Jonson began his poetic career with the epigram. For a man like Jonson who be...
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In the following essay, Walton characterizes Jonson's poetry as a model of civility, exhibiting both its intellectual and moral values.
It is well known that Pope imitated the opening couplet o...
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In the following excerpt, Summers and Pebworth describe Jonson as a varied poet, viewing his idealism as the link between his neo-classical tendencies and his emotionalism.
The recent quickening of cr...
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In the following essay, Evans contends that the poetry Jonson wrote within the patronage system was as psychologically necessary as it was financially enabling.
The impact of patronage on English Rena...
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Theatre Through One Man
Ben Jonson was born around June 11, 1572 near London. He was the son of a Protestant clergyman that was persecuted for being Protestant during the Catholic Tudor reign. Ben...
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This poem is about death. The author, Ben Jonson, a famous playwright, writes about the death of his eldest seven-year-old son and how sad and grieved he is about it. He does this and expresses his di...
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