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Ben Jonson
This edition includes the complete text of two of Johnson's poetic collections, the Epigrams and The Forest, along with a generous selection from The Underwood and a group of Miscellaneous Poems.
808 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Ben Jonson
1,426 books189 followersBenjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. 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. A house in Dulwich College is named after him.
See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson
See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 27, 2024
This is a review of the Oxford Authors edition of Jonson, 1985, ed. Ian Donaldson. The review of the Thom Gunn selection is obv in the wrong place.
That old cliche, that there was not merely nobody equal, but nobody even second to him, is as true of Shakespeare as of anybody. Certainly Ben Jonson was not, in that sense, second to his older contemporary, though he would have liked to be, and though (among Elizabethan dramatists anyway) there is not anybody obvious between the two; indeed his fulsome praise of Shakespeare, and also for John Donne, is the thing that commends him most to me. His talent was essentially imitative - it might be said, in the old-fashioned sense of these words, that he had talent but not genius. A play like Volpone is quite a funny idea - a man juggling several others for his own amusement, by holding out to each the prospect of making him his heir - and has what should be, in the staging, some quite funny scenes. It is probably more akin to modern comedy than any play of Shakespeare, and the characters talk and act more like what we would expect. The trouble is, it is utterly cynical and inconsequential. The littlest, least effort of Shakespeare, whether comic or tragic, gives you something positive, helps you to love life, and is more worthwhile than this, Jonson's showpiece.
Similarly his verse is unmusical, convoluted, lacks real poetry and even a discernible theme. He has a strong mind, but not really an artistic one; his instincts are coarse and unspiritual, he has no vision. It has been noted about Jonson that generally - and unlike most writers - his work is not about Love. Since Jonson once killed a man in a duel, you might say he was a fighter, not a lover: as the introduction notes, he wrote love poems because it is expected of a poet, but does not actually seem to have been much given to the tender passion. That is not necessarily a bad thing; we can get sick of Love. To be a poet it is not essential to be in love with someone, or to love Love; you might instead love God, or Nature, or (at a pinch) some great Cause, or even just Life in general. But it is probably essential (in spite of the popularity of Sylvia Plath in the modern education system) for a poet of any worth to love *something*. And that is the significance of Jonson not writing about Love: he actually doesn't seem to love anything.
He writes pieces asking to borrow money, or about having seen some nobleman ride his horse particularly well! It tells you something that, by his own account, some friend suggested he should stop using the word 'whore' so much; and it tells you something that his reply was, he might as well stop using the word 'woman'. It must tell you something that one of the pieces often used for anthologies, 'Come my Celia, let us prove...' comes from Volpone - so presumably written for the occasion, and not for any real-life love - and, in the play, is the cynical utterance of an exploitative seducer. And even then, it's not all that good.
Perhaps he would have fitted in better during the Augustan age of Dr Johnson; and perhaps, as with Burns, if you knew and cared more about his life, it would give more interest to a lot of his verse. But unlike Burns - and although he certainly had a colourful life, especially compared to the anaemic existence of most writers today - he just doesn't seem an appealing character. TS Eliot says that to appreciate him you need an 'intelligent saturation' in his work, but I don't want to; I recoil from the idea.
Still, if you do like Jonson, there is a lot of him in this 600-page selection (plus 200 pages of notes - with, as usual, glosses for the things you don't need and not for those you do): besides Volpone, The Alchemist, most of his verse, and prose including his 'commonplace book', Discoveries.
That old cliche, that there was not merely nobody equal, but nobody even second to him, is as true of Shakespeare as of anybody. Certainly Ben Jonson was not, in that sense, second to his older contemporary, though he would have liked to be, and though (among Elizabethan dramatists anyway) there is not anybody obvious between the two; indeed his fulsome praise of Shakespeare, and also for John Donne, is the thing that commends him most to me. His talent was essentially imitative - it might be said, in the old-fashioned sense of these words, that he had talent but not genius. A play like Volpone is quite a funny idea - a man juggling several others for his own amusement, by holding out to each the prospect of making him his heir - and has what should be, in the staging, some quite funny scenes. It is probably more akin to modern comedy than any play of Shakespeare, and the characters talk and act more like what we would expect. The trouble is, it is utterly cynical and inconsequential. The littlest, least effort of Shakespeare, whether comic or tragic, gives you something positive, helps you to love life, and is more worthwhile than this, Jonson's showpiece.
Similarly his verse is unmusical, convoluted, lacks real poetry and even a discernible theme. He has a strong mind, but not really an artistic one; his instincts are coarse and unspiritual, he has no vision. It has been noted about Jonson that generally - and unlike most writers - his work is not about Love. Since Jonson once killed a man in a duel, you might say he was a fighter, not a lover: as the introduction notes, he wrote love poems because it is expected of a poet, but does not actually seem to have been much given to the tender passion. That is not necessarily a bad thing; we can get sick of Love. To be a poet it is not essential to be in love with someone, or to love Love; you might instead love God, or Nature, or (at a pinch) some great Cause, or even just Life in general. But it is probably essential (in spite of the popularity of Sylvia Plath in the modern education system) for a poet of any worth to love *something*. And that is the significance of Jonson not writing about Love: he actually doesn't seem to love anything.
He writes pieces asking to borrow money, or about having seen some nobleman ride his horse particularly well! It tells you something that, by his own account, some friend suggested he should stop using the word 'whore' so much; and it tells you something that his reply was, he might as well stop using the word 'woman'. It must tell you something that one of the pieces often used for anthologies, 'Come my Celia, let us prove...' comes from Volpone - so presumably written for the occasion, and not for any real-life love - and, in the play, is the cynical utterance of an exploitative seducer. And even then, it's not all that good.
Perhaps he would have fitted in better during the Augustan age of Dr Johnson; and perhaps, as with Burns, if you knew and cared more about his life, it would give more interest to a lot of his verse. But unlike Burns - and although he certainly had a colourful life, especially compared to the anaemic existence of most writers today - he just doesn't seem an appealing character. TS Eliot says that to appreciate him you need an 'intelligent saturation' in his work, but I don't want to; I recoil from the idea.
Still, if you do like Jonson, there is a lot of him in this 600-page selection (plus 200 pages of notes - with, as usual, glosses for the things you don't need and not for those you do): besides Volpone, The Alchemist, most of his verse, and prose including his 'commonplace book', Discoveries.
March 28, 2021
Ben Jonson: Poems Selected by Thom Gunn is one of forty volumes published by Faber & Faber. The Poet-to-Poet Series features poems by notable poets as selected by contemporary notable poets.
Thom Gunn was an English poet who in 1954, at the age of twenty-five emigrated to the United States to teach writing at Stanford University and U.C.-Berkeley. His poetry is noted for a loose, free-verse style. In 1960’s and 1970’s, his work drew attention for its subject matter as he explored drug taking, homosexuality, and the bohemian life-style. He published
20 volumes of poems.
Ben Jonson is known as “Shakespeare’s most erudite contemporary.” He was a classically educated, and well-read poet and dramatist. He was known for personal, political, artistic, and intellectual controversy. He cultivated the patronage of aristocrats. He wrote satires, elegies, masques, plays, epistles, and epigrams. He was England’s first, though unofficial, Poet Laurate.
When I was a student of literature and enrolled in a class about a historic era, it would take a week or two into the semester before I became accustomed to the spelling, style, and idioms of the period. At one time I was fairly familiar with the Elizabethan vernacular (Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Sidney et al.), but now my memory has faded somewhat. Language is a growing evolving, morphing thing. If you don’t believe that, try reading Jonson. Revisiting an unfamiliar world, I found it to be rather dense. The nuances and subtleties of the language and the ponderous syntax made a long slog for me.
Thom Gunn was an English poet who in 1954, at the age of twenty-five emigrated to the United States to teach writing at Stanford University and U.C.-Berkeley. His poetry is noted for a loose, free-verse style. In 1960’s and 1970’s, his work drew attention for its subject matter as he explored drug taking, homosexuality, and the bohemian life-style. He published
20 volumes of poems.
Ben Jonson is known as “Shakespeare’s most erudite contemporary.” He was a classically educated, and well-read poet and dramatist. He was known for personal, political, artistic, and intellectual controversy. He cultivated the patronage of aristocrats. He wrote satires, elegies, masques, plays, epistles, and epigrams. He was England’s first, though unofficial, Poet Laurate.
When I was a student of literature and enrolled in a class about a historic era, it would take a week or two into the semester before I became accustomed to the spelling, style, and idioms of the period. At one time I was fairly familiar with the Elizabethan vernacular (Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Sidney et al.), but now my memory has faded somewhat. Language is a growing evolving, morphing thing. If you don’t believe that, try reading Jonson. Revisiting an unfamiliar world, I found it to be rather dense. The nuances and subtleties of the language and the ponderous syntax made a long slog for me.
January 27, 2013
This is a superb selected Jonson. One can only wish for a longer and fuller introduction.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews