Neither the affair nor his Catholic conversion seem to have injured Jonson's reputation, as he was back working for Henslowe within months. The move saved his life but he was forced to forfeit his property and was branded on his left thumb. He escaped hanging by pleading benefit of clergy, a legal maneuver which, by Jonson's day, meant only that he was able to gain leniency by reciting a brief bible verse in Latin. In prison, Jonson was visited by a Roman Catholic priest, and the result was his conversion to Catholicism, to which he adhered for twelve years. In a duel on September 22 in Hogsden Fields, he killed one of his fellow-actors, a member of the Admiral's Men named Gabriel Spenser.
That same year, Jonson's irascibility landed him in jail. It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published, it proved popular and went through several editions. This play was followed the next year by Every Man Out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes. William Shakespeare was among the first cast. In 1598, Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in his Humour, capitalising on the vogue for humour plays that had been begun by George Chapman with An Humorous Day's Mirth. It was the first of several run-ins with the authorities. However there is evidence that he satirized Lord Cobham. Copies of the play were destroyed, so the exact nature of the offense is unknown.
In 1597, he was imprisoned for his collaboration with Thomas Nashe in writing the play The Isle of Dogs. An undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play. John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor whatever his skills as an actor, he was evidently more valuable to the company as a writer.īy this time, Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Lord Admiral's Men in 1598, he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survive, however. For five years somewhere in this period, Jonson lived separate from his wife, enjoying instead the hospitality of Lord Aubigny.īy the summer of 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later (Jonson's epitaph to him On My First Sonne was written shortly after), and a second Benjamin died in 1635. Martin's Church state that his eldest daughter Mary died in November, 1593, when she was only six months old.
Ben Jonson married some time before 1594, to a woman he described to Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest." His wife has not been decisively identified, but she is sometimes identified as the Ann Lewis who married a Benjamin Jonson at St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge. Since the war was otherwise languishing during his service, this fight appears to have been the extent of his combat experience. Jonson reports that while in the Netherlands, he killed an opponent in single combat and stripped him of his weapons. He soon had enough of the trade, probably bricklaying, and spent some time in the Low Countries as a volunteer with the regiments of Francis Vere. On leaving, Jonson was once thought to have gone on to the University of Cambridge Jonson himself said that he did not go to university, but was put to a trade immediately: a legend recorded by Fuller indicates that he worked on a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. Jonson remained friendly with Camden, whose broad scholarship evidently influenced his own style, until the latter's death in 1623. Martin's Lane, and was later sent to Westminster School, where one of his teachers was William Camden. His father died a month before Ben's birth, and his mother remarried two years later, to a master bricklayer. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.Īlthough he was born in Westminster, London, Jonson claimed his family was of Scottish Border country descent, and this claim may be supported by the fact that his coat of arms bears three spindles or rhombi, a device shared by a Borders family, the Johnstones of Annandale. He is best known for his plays Volpone and The Alchemist and his lyric poems. J– August 6, 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. Related subjects: British History 1500-1750 Writers and critics Ben Jonsonīen Jonson by Abraham Blyenberch, c. 7 years.2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Single territory rights for trade books worldwide rights for academic books. Print and/or digital, including use in online academic databases. Web display, social media, apps or blogs. Personal presentation use or non-commercial, non-public use within a company or organization only. Not for commercial use, not for public display, not for resale.
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