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\n“O rare Benn Johnson.” — Jonson’s incorrectly-spelled epitaph in Westminster Abbey<\/i><\/big><\/p>\n
It’s his birthday today. <\/p>\n
Ben Jonson did everything. Plays, poems, satires, elegies, epigrams. His talent was wide and flexible. Everything he wrote feels inevitable. However, as Michael Schmidt writes in his wonderful Lives of the Poets<\/em>: “Jonson suffers one irremediable disability: Shakespeare.”<\/p>\n When people have discussed him, throughout history, more often than not they do so in comparison to Shakespeare. Shakespeare is the context, Jonson is in that context’s shadow. As giant as Ben Jonson was, and he was a GIANT, he is not allowed to stand alone, because Shakespeare hovers over all. One cannot exist without consciousness of the other. <\/p>\n The men are placed in opposition merely because of their closeness in the timeline.<\/p>\n Bing Crosby once said something along these lines in re: Frank Sinatra: \u201cFrank is a singer who comes along once in a lifetime, but why did he have to come along in my lifetime?\u201d<\/p>\n One can imagine Ben Jonson thinking something similar about Shakespeare.<\/p>\n More beneath the jump: <\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n There’s that great quote from Jonson about Shakespeare:<\/p>\n I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n There was controversy in Jonson’s life. He was imprisoned for a play it was thought he wrote, and spent some time locked up. He converted to Roman Catholicism while in prison, although the conversion didn’t “take”. He killed someone and was almost hanged for it. He traveled widely. The publication of his “first folio” was overseen by him and was influential in the subsequent publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio seven years later. Jonson was involved in the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio as well, and, famously, wrote an elegy for Shakespeare which appears in the opening pages. There probably are not more picked-apart words in all of literature.<\/p>\n To the memory of my beloved, To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name, What is amazing about this, for me, is how personal it is. It is a “letter” to his dead friend. You can feel their relationship, the vestiges of envy, openly admitted to, and the emotion is palpable: “and what he hath left us.” Ben Jonson was a prescient man. He knew what Shakespeare was. He knew the work would last.<\/p>\n There is so much material to choose from, with Ben Jonson, but the following poem, written to his dead child, is heartbreaking, with two lines in particular (the first and the 10th) that pierce across time, obliterating the intervening centuries. <\/p>\n On My First Son<\/big><\/b><\/p>\n Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; John Dryden, 17th century critic:<\/strong><\/p>\n I admire Jonson, but I love Shakespeare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Edmund Bolton, 1722:<\/strong><\/p>\n I never tasted English more to my liking, nor more smart, and put to the height of use in poetry, than in the vital, judicious, and most practicable language of Benjamin Jonson’s poems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n William Drummond, poet, Conversations with Drummond<\/i>, a long list of things Ben Jonson said to him during a sleepover – lol – in 1618:<\/strong><\/p>\n His censure of the English poets was this: that Sidney did not keep a decorum in making everyone speak as well as himself. Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets<\/em>: <\/strong><\/p>\n Jonson makes us guests at great houses and lets us hear the age’s mannerly speech and savor its hospitality. We hear his songs, too; and we meet, through his eyes, friends and foes as real as any in poetry. He was among the first great poets to take an active interest in publishing, to seek fortune and solace from the printing of his own work in book form. He is the grandfather, or godfather, of Grub Street. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Aubrey, 17th century gossip: <\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Jonson had one eie lower than t’other, and bigger, like Clun the Player; perhaps he begott Clun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Robert Lowell, letter to Elizabeth Bishop, September 11, 1957: <\/strong><\/p>\n Jonson has a bold steadiness and here hardly ever flinches away into parody and the cliches of exaggeration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Michael Schmidt:<\/strong><\/p>\n He’s the most versatile writer in the history of English poetry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n One can choose 1587 as an arbitrary date to begin the richest eighty years of poetry in English. Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine<\/em> was then first performed, perhaps with Shakespeare in the audience, though we do not know when the greatest of poets first arrived in London: 1589 seems to me rather too late, even as an outward limit. The first three books of Spenser’s Faerie Queene<\/em> were published in 1590. In the early 1590s, Donne wrote many of the Songs and Sonnets<\/em>, to be published only posthumously. By 1595, at the latest, Shakespeare was at his first full greatness, joined by Jonson at his strongest in Volpone<\/em> (1606). The Tribe of Ben–disciples of the lyric and epigrammatic Jonson–included Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, and Richard Lovelace. Andrew Marvell, a poetic party of one, wrote his lyrics by the 1650s, coming after the posthumous publication of George Herbert’s poetry in 1633. Richard Crashaw and Henry Vaughan published by the 1650s. Milton’s Comus<\/em> was composed in 1634; Paradise Lost<\/em>, dictated by the blind poet, was finished by 1665, seventy-eight years after Marlowe first shattered his London audiences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n T.S. Eliot, from “Andrew Marvell”, 1921:<\/strong><\/p>\n Marvell is no greater personality than William Morris, but he had something much more solid behind him: he had the vast and penetrating influence of Ben Jonson. Jonson never wrote anything purer than Marvell’s Horatian Ode; this ode has that same quality of wit which was diffused over the whole Elizabethan product and concentrated in the work of Jonson. And, as was said before, this wit which pervades the poetry of Marvell is more Latin, more refined, than anything that succeeded it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Alexander Pope: <\/strong><\/p>\n It is ever the nature of parties to be in extremes; and nothing is so probable, as that because Ben Jonson had much the more learning, it was said on the other hand that Shakespeare had none at all; and because Shakespeare had much the most wit and fancy, it was retorted on the other, that Jonson wanted both. Because Shakespeare borrowed nothing, it was said that Ben Jonson borrowed everything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Ben Jonson’s Sejanus<\/em>: <\/strong><\/p>\n …the absurd rant and ventriloquism<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Algernon Charles Swinburne: <\/strong><\/p>\n …one of the singers who could not sing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ouch.<\/p>\n from “Time and the Garden”<\/big> William Drummond, Conversations with Drummond<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n A great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n Shakespeare’s influence upon the novel is larger even than that of Cervantes. The masters of the novel–from Jane Austen and Stendhal through Dickens, Tolstoy, Balzac, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Henry James, Proust, Joyce, Virginia Woolf–are obliged to be Shakespearean, with violent unwillingness on the part of Tolstoy, who found King Lear loathsome and unnatural. What Tolstoy resented is what Ben Jonson resisted, until Jonson read about half of Shakespeare’s plays for the first time in helping to put together the First Folio of 1623, seven years after the death of his great friend and rival. “Nature herself was proud of his designs” is Jonson’s highest compliment, not to be bettered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Dryden: <\/strong><\/p>\n …not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all others; you track him everywhere in their snow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Michael Schmidt:<\/strong><\/p>\n In the plays the proximity of Shakespeare does Jonson most harm, though he writes plays so different from his friend’s that they seem distinct in kind and period. Part of that difference is Jonson’s poetic balance, deliberate artistry: he knows what he wants to say and has the means of saying it, no more or less. He reaches a conclusion and stops; no discovery leads him beyond his destination. He speaks for his age, while Shakespeare speaks for himself. Jonson’s art is normative, Shakespeare’s radical and exploratory. In Jonson there’s structure and gauged variegation, in Shakespeare movement and warmth…At times Jonson’s words, unlike Shakespeare’s tend to separate out and stand single, rather than coalesce, as though he had attended to each individual word. His mind is busy near the surface.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n Subtle and stoical, Jonson was also melancholic, and fought bravely against his own self-recognitions and tendency to despair. He compared himself to a broken compass, unable to complete the circle, and his life was frequently difficult. Art, for him, was hard work. To be Shakespeare’s personal friend and rival poet-playwright was not an easy fate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Dryden:<\/strong><\/p>\n [He] did a little too much to Romanise our tongue, leaving the words he translated almost as much Latin as he found them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n John Aubrey: <\/strong><\/p>\n ‘Twas an ingeniose remarque of my Lady Hoskins, that B.J. never writes of Love, or if he does, does it not naturally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Jonson, born in the same year as Donne, survived him by six years, and divided with Donne the formative influence upon the next generation of poets, until the advent of John Milton. For us, now, Jonson lives in his three great comedies for the stage–Volpone, The Alchemist<\/em>, and Bartholomew Fair<\/em>–and as a lyrical and reflective poet. His frequently beautiful court masques tend now to be neglected, but the best of the twenty-eight read beautifully. The masques were, in a sense collaborations with Inigo Jones, superb scenic designer and architect, whose showmanship frequently made Jonson unhappy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Michael Schmidt on Ben Jonson: <\/strong><\/p>\n The more we read Jonson the more we see him as an enabling figure comparable to Pound. Clarity of expression is matched by intellectual and perceptual rigor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n Jonson had called John Donne “the first poet in the world in some things,” but then had prophesied that Donne” for not being understood, would perish.” That prophecy has not been fulfilled. Is it only an irony that Jonson, for being understood, has perished, except for his scholars?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To John Donne<\/strong><\/big> Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse William Drummond, Conversations with Drummond<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n [He] excelleth only in a translation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Elizabeth Hardwick, “Memoirs, Conversations, and Diaries”, 1953<\/strong><\/p>\n Even if we did not know Jonson to be a great and lovable genius, a profound and generous critic elsewhere, we could say at least that his remarks [as reported by William Drummond] have a quality dear to us, honesty<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harold Bloom, The Best Poems of the English Language<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n Jonson, in every respect that most matters, is about as unlike Donne as could be: most classical when most personal, and so always taking on the role of the poet proper, speaking or singing the ethical concerns of humankind to whoever is qualified to listen and to understand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Part of Drury-lane Prologue Spoken by Mr. Garrick at the Opening of the Theatre in Drury-Lane, 1747<\/strong><\/big> When Learning\u2019s triumph o\u2019er her barb\u2019rous foes Then Jonson came, instructed from the school, \n
\nThe Author
\nMR. W I L L I A M S H A K E S P E A R E :
\nA N D
\nwhat he hath left us.<\/p>\n
\nAm I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame;
\nWhile I confesse thy writings to be such,
\nAs neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much.
\n‘Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these wayes
\nWere not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
\nFor seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
\nWhich, when it sounds at best, but eccho’s right;
\nOr blinde Affection, which doth ne’re advance
\nThe truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
\nOr crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
\nAnd thine to ruine, where it seem’d to raise.
\nThese are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore,
\nShould praise a Matron. What could hurt her more?
\nBut thou art proofe against them, and indeed
\nAbove th’ ill fortune of them, or the need.
\nI, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age !
\nThe applause ! delight ! the wonder of our Stage !
\nMy Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
\nChaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
\nA little further, to make thee a roome :
\nThou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
\nAnd art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
\nAnd we have wits to read, and praise to give.
\nThat I not mixe thee so, my braine excuses ;
\nI meane with great, but disproportion’d Muses :
\nFor, if I thought my judgement were of yeeres,
\nI should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
\nAnd tell, how farre thou dist our Lily out-shine,
\nOr sporting Kid or Marlowes mighty line.
\nAnd though thou hadst small Latine, and lesse Greeke,
\nFrom thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
\nFor names; but call forth thund’ring \u00c6schilus,
\nEuripides, and Sophocles to us,
\nPaccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
\nTo life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread,
\nAnd shake a stage : Or, when thy sockes were on,
\nLeave thee alone, for the comparison
\nOf all, that insolent Greece, or haughtie Rome
\nSent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
\nTriumph, my Britaine, thou hast one to showe,
\nTo whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
\nHe was not of an age, but for all time !
\nAnd all the Muses still were in their prime,
\nWhen like Apollo he came forth to warme
\nOur eares, or like a Mercury to charme !
\nNature her selfe was proud of his designes,
\nAnd joy’d to weare the dressing of his lines !
\nWhich were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
\nAs, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
\nThe merry Greeke, tart Aristophanes,
\nNeat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
\nBut antiquated, and deserted lye
\nAs they were not of Natures family.
\nYet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,
\nMy gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part;
\nFor though the Poets matter, Nature be,
\nHis Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
\nWho casts to write a living line, must sweat,
\n(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
\nUpon the Muses anvile : turne the same,
\n(And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame;
\nOr for the lawrell, he may gaine a scorne,
\nFor a good Poet’s made, as well as borne.
\nAnd such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face
\nLives in his issue, even so, the race
\nOf Shakespeares minde, and manners brightly shines
\nIn his well toned, and true-filed lines :
\nIn each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
\nAs brandish’t at the eyes of Ignorance.
\nSweet swan of Avon! what a fight it were
\nTo see thee in our waters yet appeare,
\nAnd make those flights upon the bankes of Thames,
\nThat so did take Eliza, and our James !
\nBut stay, I see thee in the Hemisphere
\nAdvanc’d, and made a Constellation there !
\nShine forth, thou Starre of Poets, and with rage,
\nOr influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;
\nWhich, since thy flight fro’ hence, hath mourn’d like night,
\nAnd despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nMy sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
\nSeven years wert thou leant to me, and I thee pay,
\nExacted by thy fate, on the just day.
\nO. I could lose all father now. For why
\nWill man lament the state he should envy?
\nTo have so soon ‘scaped world’s, and flesh’s, rage,
\nAnd if no other misery, yet age?
\nRest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
\nBen Jonson, his best piece of poetry.
\nFor whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
\nAs what he loves may never like too much.<\/p>\nQUOTES:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nSpenser\u2019s stanzas pleased him not, nor his matter, the meaning of which allegory he had delivered in papers to Sir Walter Raleigh.
\nSamuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no children, but no poet.
\nThat Michael Drayton\u2019s Poly-O[l]bion<\/em>, if [he] had performed what he promised to write, the deeds of all the worthies, had been excellent. His long verses pleased him not.
\nThat Sylvester\u2019s translation of Du Bartas was not well done, and that he wrote his verse before it ere he understood to confer. Nor that of Fairfax his.
\nThat the translations of Homer and Virgil in long Alexandrines were but prose.
\nThat John Harington\u2019s Ariosto under all translations was the worst. That when Sir John Harington desired him to tell the truth of his epigrams, he answered him that he loved not the truth, for they were narrations, and not epigrams.
\nThat Warner, since the king\u2019s coming to England, [h]ad marred all his Albion\u2019s England<\/em>.
\nThat Donne\u2019s Anniversary<\/em> was profane and full of blasphemies.
\nThat he told Mr Donne, if it had been written of the Virgin Mary it had been something; to which he answered that he described the idea of a woman, and not as she was.
\nThat Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging.
\nThat Shakespeare wanted art.
\nThat Sharpham, Day, Dekker, were all rogues, and that Minsheu was one.
\nThat Abraham Fraunce in his English hexameters was a fool.
\nThat next himself only Fletcher and Chapman could make a masque.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nBy Yvor Winters<\/strong>
\nAnd this is like that other restlessness
\nTo seize the greatness not yet fairly earned,
\nOne which the tougher poets have discerned —
\nGascoigne, Ben Jonson, Greville, Ralegh, Donne,
\nPoets who wrote great poems, one by one,
\nAnd spaced by many years, each line an act
\nThrough which few labour, which no men retract.<\/p>\n
\nBY BEN JONSON<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nWho, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
\nWhose every work of thy most early wit
\nCame forth example, and remains so yet;
\nLonger a-knowing than most wits do live;
\nAnd which no affection praise enough can give!
\nTo it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
\nWhich might with half mankind maintain a strife.
\nAll which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
\nBut leave, because I cannot as I should! <\/p>\n
\nBY SAMUEL JOHNSON<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nFirst rear\u2019d the stage, immortal Shakespear rose;
\nEach change of many-colour\u2019d life he drew,
\nExhausted worlds, and then imagin\u2019d new:
\nExistence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
\nAnd panting Time toil\u2019d after him in vain:
\nHis pow\u2019rful strokes presiding Truth impress\u2019d,
\nAnd unresisted Passion storm\u2019d the breast. <\/p>\n
\nTo please in method, and invent by rule;
\nHis studious patience, and laborious art,
\nBy regular approach essay\u2019d the heart;
\nCold Approbation gave the ling\u2019ring bays,
\nFor those who durst not censure, scarce could praise.
\nA mortal born he met the general doom,
\nBut left, like Egypt\u2019s kings, a lasting tomb….<\/p>\n
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\nThank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n