Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Ben Jonson

True happiness consists not in the

multitude of friends, but in the worth
and choice.
 About the author
Name: Benjamin Jonson
Occupation: Playwrigth, actor and poet
Birth date: June 11th , 1572
Place of birth: London, England
Death date: August 6th, 1637
Place of Death: London, England
Ben Jonson was a poet, essayist and
playwright

His father a minister died shortly before his

birth and his mother remarried a bricklayer
He went to St Martin´s school and
westminster school, he came under the
influence of the classical scholar William
Comden.
He served in the military at Flandres, before
working as an actor
Sometime between 1592 and 1595 he got
married with Anne Lewis.
Days after the first performance of Every
Man In His Humour, Jonson killed an actor
Gabriel Spencer in a duel. He was in prison
few weeks but he recieved a benefit of the
clergy
 His Works
In 1598, Jonson wrote what is
considered his first great play,
Every Man in His Humour.

The play belongs to the

subgenre of the ¨humours
comedy¨
Jonson produced popular masques (works
combining drama, song and spectacle)
He was a Poet Laureate of England.
Jonson became one of the most successful
writers of his era.
Jonson’s popularity as a playwright in
England was second only to
Shakespeare’s, and many contemporaries
wrote in print that they preferred Jonson.
 His most famous plays
Valpone
The Alchemist ¨Book¨
Epicoene or The silent
woman
Bartholomew Fair
The devil is an ass
Quotes From his Works
“Come my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He at length our good will sever.” The
Forest

“He was not of an age, but for all time!”

To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author,
Mr. William Shakespeare (1618)
“Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back;
And is a swelling, and the last affection
A high mind can put off; being both a rebel
Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth
All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion,
and offereth violence to nature's self.”
Catiline His Conspiracy (1611), Act III,
scene ii.

Truth is the trial of itself

And needs no other touch,
And purer than the purest gold,
Refine it ne'er so much.
The Touchstone of Truth (1624), lines 1-4.
Get money; still get money, boy,
No matter by what means.
Act ii, Scene 3. Every Man in His Humour
Most of his poetry was written in short lyric
forms, which he handled with great skill. His
lyric style tends to be simple and
unadorned yet highly polished, as in the
epigram on the death of his first daughter,
which begins:

"Here lies to each her parents ruth,/ Mary,

the daughter of their youth."