Ben Jonson
And the Cavalier poets
Contents:
- Benjamin Jonson’s
biography
- Benjamin Jonson’s
literary creation:
- Volpone
- Every Man in his
Humour
- The Alchemist
- Benjamin Jonson and his
followers ( The Cavalier
poets)
Benjamin Jonson
(circa 11/06/1572- 06/08/1637)
He was born in Westminster, London in 1572, the
posthumous son of a clergyman. His father died a month
before Ben’s birth, and his mother remarried two years
later, to a master bricklayer. Jonson attended school in St.
Martin’s Lane, and was later sent to Westminster School.
About 1589, probably because of his poverty, instead of
pursuing a university education he left Westminster to
follow his stepfather’s trade of bricklaying.
Ben Jonson married some time before 1592. The registers
of St. Martin’s Church state that his eldest daughter Mary
died in November, 1593, when she was only six months
old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years
later, and a second Benjamin died in 1635.
‘Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of the dramatic poets;
Jonson as the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing.’
Essay on Dramatic Poesy -1668- John Dryden
By September of 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in
the Lord Admiral’s acting company, then performing under
Philip Henslowe’s management at The Rose.
In 1597 he was imprisoned for his collaboration with
Thomas Nashe in writing the play Isle of Dogs. In 1598 ,
Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in his
humour. On September 22, 1598, Jonson killed his fellowactor, Gabriel Spencer, in a duel. When brought to trial, he
confessed and claimed right of clergy; his property was
confiscated and his thumb branded. On January 6, 1605, he
began his great career of masque- writing with the
production of The Masque of Blackness at Whitehall, and
during the reign of James he finished twenty of the thirtyseven masques presented at court. Early in 1606 he
composed Volpone.
‘Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of the dramatic poets;
Jonson as the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing.’
Essay on Dramatic Poesy -1668- John Dryden
On July 19, 1619, Jonson was made M. A. of Oxford. In
1628 he became city chronologer of London. He had
suffered debilitating stroke that year, and in the following
year he was granted a pension of £ 100 by King Charles. He
died on August 6, 1637, and was buried three days later in
Westminster Abbey. Several stories surround his unusual
burial in the Abbey. The first says that, dying in great
poverty, Jonson begged for '18 inches of square ground in
Westminster Abbey' from Charles I. Another says that 'one
day being railed by the Dean of Westminster about being
buried in Poets' Corner, Jonson is said to have replied:" I am
too poor for that, and no one will lay out funeral charges
upon me. No sir, 2 feet by 2 feet will do for all I want."
Either way, Jonson was buried in the Nave of the Abbey
standing on his feet.
Theory of Humours
Ben Jonson modelled himself on classical authors
and his characters were types like those of
Theophrastus, or were intended to illustrate the
theory of Humours. In early Western physiological
theory, a Humour is one of the four fluids of the
body that were thought to determine a person's
temperament and features. In the ancient
physiological theory still current in the European
Middle Ages and later, the four cardinal humours
were blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and
melancholy (black bile); the variant mixtures of these
humours in different persons determined their
“complexions,” or “temperaments,” their physical
and mental qualities, and their dispositions. The ideal
person had the ideally proportioned mixture of the
four; a predominance of one produced a person who
was sanguine (Latin sanguis, “blood”), phlegmatic,
choleric, or melancholic.
Table of the four humours in
Renaissance and Elizabethan time
Humour
Body
substance
Produced by
Element
Qualities
Complexion
and body type
Personality
Sanguine
blood
liver
air
Hot and moist
Red-cheeked,
corpulent
Amourous,
happy,
generous,
optimistic,
irresponsible
Choleric
Yellow bile
spleen
fire
Hot and dry
Red-haired,
thin
Violent,
vengeful,
shorttempered,
ambitious
Phlegmatic
phlegm
lungs
water
Cold and
moist
corpulent
Sluggish,
pallid,
cowardly
Melancholic
Black bile
Gall bladder
earth
Cold and dry
Sallow, thin
Introspective,
sentimental,
gluttonous
Volpone
- Things to remember
about Volpone and
Ben Jonson’s style
- Plot
- Monsters in Volpone
Things to remember:
Ben Jonson
- had a passion for the varied and colourful London life of his time
- had a boisterous and even cruel sense of humor
- showed impressive originality even when working within classical models
Volpone is characterised with:
- savagery and humour
- moral feeling and grim characterisation of the monstrous absurdities of human nature
It could be read as:
- a moral exemplum
- a beast fable (a beast fable is a short tale in which the principle actors are animals.
Jonson’s characters are people, but they havethe characteristics of animals, as their
names reveal)
- a satire ( on English life in General)
- a humour play
- a tragedy
The play Volpone is very pessimistic. A principle theme is the
way that greed can make people gullible. In playing their
trick, which focuses on exposing the greed of others, Volpone
and Mosca also expose their own selfishness and greed
(which is greater than that of the victims)
The setting is Renaissance Italy, accepted by the English
imagination of the time as the proper home of vice.
The characters are deliberately restricted in scope in the
interests of the satiric purpose. They are pretty shallow and
rearely show genuine emotions. They could be described as
two-dimentional.
There is no real catharsis in the play, no true triumph of good
over evil. Bonario and Celia are not saved by their gods but
because the evil people tell on each other.
Plot
Inspired by classical stories
of the of the captatores, the
legacy hunters of Rome,
described by Petronius and
others, Jonson created with
Volpone the story of a
cunning rich man who feigns
a mortal illness so that his
wealthy neighbours would
court his favour in hopes of
becoming his heir.
But Volpone ( Big Fox) cannot act alone. His servant Mosca
(Fly) plays on the legacy hunters’ hopes and fears acting as
Volpone’s agent but also capable of double-cross. He
promises each of the legacy hunters that Volpone will name
him as his heir, and he urge each of the ‘birds of pray’ to
speed the process by showing Volpone examples of their
good will and respect through what else but gifts. Thus each
is induced to bring gifts to the supposedly dying Volpone,
with the idea that they will not only receive gifts back when
he dies but all his other treasures as well.
The eager legacy hunters willingly hasten to prove the
devotion to Volpone, but their eagerness has a malevolent
side: they become willing to betray and destroy closest to
them in hopes of getting the big reward.
However, unlike in the
conventional comedy, good
does not necessarily triumph at
the end, for even the state itself
is shown to be easily corrupted.
Volpone’s avarice seems to be
epidemic, and good characters
like Celia and Bonario stand at
the mercy of evil.
Monsters in Volpone
Nano the Fool- Nano’s body,
rather than his mind or spirit,
is defective. His deformity is
nevertheless as much
behavioural as physical,
because Nano performs as a
‘dwarf’ for Volpone. Nano is
partly in controlof his own
identity because he
manipulates his deformity to
amuse Volpone. He is quite
successful at seizing control
of his situation.
Castrone (Castrated) - His defect is one of the body- physical.
Castrone succeeds in negotiating Venetian society despite his infirmity.
In fact, since no one actually has sex in this play, Castrone can be said
to symbolise perfectly the condition of the society.
Androgino- as a hermaphrodite, has a physical defect as well. Yet we
might say that he is more ‘perfect’ or complete than any other character
in the play, since he has two sets of genitals. Sex is not important to
Androgino, either in terms of intercourse or in terms of gender.
Corvino (the Raven) - his deformity, unlike those of the previous
character, is ethical, spiritual, or moral rather than physical. He has a
strong need for others’ approval, he is egocentric, and he exploits his
own virtuous and beautiful wife (Celia). He goes down the social scale
from merchant to pimp. Using his wife to gain more money, he is less
sufficient than the previous ‘monsters’. He is at once old and
phlegmatic and choleric. As a ‘Raven’ he is a scavenger. He is unable to
make normal human connections.
Sir Politic- Would- Be - He is mentally and spiritually empty. He needs the company of
others, but does not make any human and intellectual connections.He too is egocentric,
pretentious, and shows the dangers of being too ‘sanguine’ in a humours psychology.
Like his wife, Sir Politic creates himself through language, through talk, although he
does not know what he is talking about. At the end of the play he is disillusioned, which
is a fate the physical monsters do not endure. He is also deceptive and plotting, and
none of the ‘real monsters’ have to pretend to be what they are not.
Lady Would-Be - like her husband, she is self-absorbed and shallow. She is also mean to
her servants. Lady Would-Be tries to imitate the Italian courtesans, which suggests that
she aspires to sexual voraciousness that no one else in the play can attain. She is the
most talkative character in the play, which means she must create herself through
speech, while the physical monsters are identifiable by there physical appearance. Lady
Would- Be is very bright and colourful like a ‘parrot’, she wants to be an object of
amazed sight, like Nano, Castrone and Androgino.
Corbaccio (the Carrion Crow) - He is physically weak and weak in character. He is
basically phlegmatic, but disinherits his own son (Bonario), which suggests that
Corbaccio does not understand human connections. He is a scavenger, attracted to
bright things. He does not hear well, which makes him seem less human.
Every Man in His Humour
Every Man in His Humor, not Jonson's greatest but probably his most influential play,
first acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Men in 1598, was entered in the Stationers'
Register August 4, 1600, and was printed the following year. This version, with its
scene laid in Florence and its chief characters bearing Italian names, was later carefully
revised by Jonson for publication in the 1616 folio. The scene was shifted to London,
the characters were given English names and were more individualized, and the
expression in general was much altered, the most notable change being the excision of
Lorenzo's (Knowell's) defense of poetry at the end of the play, a passage which delayed
the action and to Jonson's mind probably violated the principle of decorum because it
was unsuited to such a gathering. The plot is of Jonson's own invention, but from
Chapman's An Humorous Day's Mirth (1599) he drew hints for the gull, and from
Plautine comedy he derived the suggestion of a pair of elderly persons deceived and
outwitted by a pair of clever, young men, is well as the shrewd serving-man and the
braggart soldier. In its preservation of unity of tone, its observance of the unities of
time, place, and action, and its truth to what is typical or normal in action and character,
the play shows a definite adherence to the requirements of classical comedy as
formulated by Renaissance criticism, notably by Sidney in his Defense of Poesy,
published in 1595. The prologue to the later version of the play presents Jonson's
essential dramatic theory for all his comedies. He here expresses condemnation of the
wildly romantic tendencies in the drama and declares his purpose to "show the image of
the times" by employing "deeds and language such as men do use," and to make follies,
not crimes, his chief consideration.
The Alchemist
Jonson's most popular and, in the light of his theory, most perfect play,
The Alchemist, was written during the plague season of 1610 for
performance before Londoners who, like Lovewit, would return to their
homes after all danger of infection had passed. The practice of alchemy
was as common to the life of the time as it had been in the Middle Ages,
and exposures of impostures such as Jonson portrays were so frequent in
life as well as in literature that it has been impossible to discover any
source for this aspect of the play. From Plautus' Mostellaria he may have
derived the quarrel scene at the opening of the play and the idea of the
unexpected return of the owner of a house in which rogues are carrying on
their practices; and he may have taken certain minor suggestions from
Plautus' Pœnulus and Erasmus' colloquy on the alchemist. The
construction of the play reveals the hand of the master. All the unities are
rigidly observed. The action takes place in a single day at a house in the
Blackfriars district of London, and, while the three intrigues remain
distinct, each being a unit in itself, they are actuated by similar motives,
are pervaded by one comic tone, and are related to the general plan.
Suspense as to the outcome of the action constantly increases to the very
Cavalier poets
Though the Cavalier Poets only occasionally imitated the strenuous
intellectual conceits of Donne, and his followers, and were fervent
admirers of Jonson's elegance, they took care to learn from both parties.
In fact, reading the work of Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, Richard
Lovelace, Lord Herbert, Aurelian Townshend, William Cartwright,
Thomas Randolph, William Habington, Sir Richard Fanshawe, Edmund
Waller, and the Marquis of Montrose, it is easy to see that they each owe
something to both styles.
In fact the common factor that binds the cavaliers together is their use
of direct and colloquial language expressive of a highly individual
personality, and their enjoyment of the casual, the amateur, the
affectionate poem written by the way. They are 'cavalier' in the sense, not
only of being Royalists (though Waller changed sides twice), but in the
sense that they distrust the over-earnest, the too intense. They accept the
ideal of the Renaissance Gentleman who is at once lover, soldier, wit,
man of affairs, musician, and poet, but abandon the notion of his being
also a pattern of Christian chivalry. They avoid the subject of religion,
apart from making one or two graceful speeches.
They attempt no plumbing of the
depths of the soul. They treat life
cavalierly, indeed, and sometimes
they treat poetic convention cavalierly
too. For them life is far too enjoyable
for much of it to be spent sweating
over verses in a study. The poems
must be written in the intervals of
living, and are celebratory of things
that are much livelier than mere
philosophy or art.