Ben Jonson: A Life

by David Riggs

Ben Jonson's contemporaries admired him above all other playwrights and poets of the English Renaissance. He was the “great refiner” who alchemized the bleakest aspects of everyday life into brilliant images of folly and deceit. He was also a celebrated reprobate and an ambitious entrepreneur. David Riggs illuminates every facet of this extraordinary career, giving us the first major biography of Jonson in over sixty years.

The story of Jonson's life provides a broad view of the literary procession in early modern England and the milieu in which Elizabethan drama was produced. Beginning as a journeyman actor, Jonson was soon a novice playwright; his first important play was staged in 1598, with Shakespeare in the cast. He was by turns the self-styled leader of a literary elite, a writer of court masques, the first dramatist to publish his own Works , a royal pensioner, and a genteel poet. As Jonson transformed himself from an artisan into a gentleman, his need to transcend his class origins led him to murder, to his notorious quarrels with Thomas Dekker, John Marston, and Inigo Jones, and to his lifelong rivalry with Shakespeare. Riggs traces the roots of Jonson's aggressiveness back to the turmoil of his childhood and adolescence. He offers new and convincing accounts of Jonson's latent hostility toward his bricklayer stepfather, his reckless marriage to Anne Lewis, and his conflicted relationships with his children.

This vivid portrait synthesizes six decades of scholarship and new historical evidence. Sixty halftones beautifully illustrate the story and capture the spirit of the age. With Riggs' original interpretations of Jonson's masterpieces and lesser known works, Ben A Life will prove the standard account of this complex man's life and works for many years to come.

Genres: Biography, British Literature

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

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Reviews

[Scribh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Riggs talks a lot of shit (literally) about Jonson in offensively Freudian terms. Whether true or not, this biographer seems to focus on the degree to which Jonson's personality and life experiences furnished material for his city plays, almost completely ignoring the playwright's obvious interest in national themes, failings, and events. Thus, a cuckold in one of Jonson's plays is the playwright reminiscing about "doing another gent one better" rather than a commentary on lax morality in London, or simply providing a titillating sideplot for the audience in the "cheap seats." In my view, Freudian biography is always an iffy game. Though Ian Donaldson does the same when interpreting Jonson's crypic notes about some of his hosts during the famous trek to Scotland, his biography Ben Jonson, A Life is much more factual.

[Simon Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book I should have read at university, where its lack of fun and serious views on Freud and Foucault would have held me enthralled. As a different Riggs often heard, I am now too old for this sh#t.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating account of the life of perhaps the most famous poet/playwright of the Elizabethan/Jacobean/Caroline era. Ben Jonson lived a remarkable life. The records of his existence are far more thorough than those of Shakespeare because of Jonson's controversial behavior.

Riggs spends a great amount of ink on analyzing Jonson's plays and masques - very well done. But Riggs can be irritating when he plays psychologist - speculating on the psycho-analytical reasons of Jonson's bad conduct stemming from supposed childhood traumas. This stops after a few chapters however.

The historical backdrop of Jonson's life is richly presented. The intrigue at the Jacobean court is remarkably interesting. Jonson found himself thoroughly immersed in the machinations of the court which strongly influenced the masques he wrote for James and subsequently Charles.

Disappointingly, there was little about his interaction with Shakespeare. It was if Riggs felt writing of Shakespeare would diminish Jonson's perceived greatness as a poet and playwright. I think perhaps Riggs had a traumatic childhood experience that psychologically compelled him to laud the underdog of the two great playwrights.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative; reinforced the depth of social dislocation that took place in Tudor/Stuart England as the Reformation displaced the Catholic church. It seemed to have been a Cold War mentality on steroids, and Jonson and Marlowe both were deeply involved and affected, while Shakespeare seemed to somehow stay above that fray. Jonson's reputation in his time seems to have been much greater than it is today, and perhaps we don't appreciate him because so much of his mastery was in his production of masques, an artform that is no longer performed or understood. The book was well researched and nicely laid out.

[Robert Priest · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good well written book. Informative about the era as well as the man. I am mostly interested in Shakespeare and read this in search of some crumb of information I didn't already have. Alas to no avail on that score. Though I think it's notable that Johnson's letters to and from many contemporaries are extant but none with Shakespeare. Perhaps because they lived and worked in the same city?

[Gemma · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning work of scholarship. Careful, intelligent, thorough, and a brilliant set of interpretations of the canon. Stylistically smooth and highly readable.