Mini: Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's Colleague and Competitor

In today's episode, we are exploring the life and works of one of Shakespeare's contemporaries: Ben Jonson. Often called "Shakespeare's rival," Ben Jonson was an early modern actor turned playwright who came from humble beginnings to achieve success on the London stages. We'll dive into the parallels between Shakespeare and Jonson's lives, and we'll discuss how Jonson may be the person who we should thank for Shakespeare's First Folio. 

Kourtney Smith (KS): Welcome to another Shakespeare Anyone mini-episode! In these mini-episodes, we’ll be exploring topics that are related to Shakespeare but aren’t necessarily connected to whatever play we’ve been discussing. 

Elyse Sharp (ES): And they’re mini, because, well, they’re shorter than our other episodes. They’re like quartos if the regular episodes are folio editions.  

KS: In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about Shakespeare’s contemporary, Ben Jonson. 

ES: While you may or may not be familiar with Ben Jonson or his work, you have probably heard of his plays. We’ve referenced many of his works in our episodes.

KS: Like Shakespeare, Jonson was a poet, playwright, and actor in London during the late 1500s and early 1600s. Born in London in June 1572 (most likely on the 11th), Jonson was eight years younger than Shakespeare. Jonson’s father, a clergyman who claimed descent from Scottish gentry, died shortly before Jonson’s birth. His mother later married a bricklayer.  Little else is known about Jonson’s parents. 

ES: Despite the family’s working-class status throughout his childhood, Jonson was educated at the prestigious Westminster School at the expense of William Camden, an author and antiquary who was one of the masters (and later headmaster) of the school, who Jonson studied under and later credited as the source of his art and knowledge. Westminster regularly produced plays in Latin, which would have provided Jonson with an early exposure to the theatrical medium he would later succeed in. Jonson may have later been admitted to St John's College, Cambridge. However, like Shakespeare, his formal education was cut short. Jonson left school (reportedly unwillingly) to work for his stepfather as a bricklayer. 

KS: Jonson was “unable to endure” the work of a bricklayer, and at some point in the 1590s, he joined the English Army as a volunteer and fought in the Netherlands against Spanish troops during the Eighty Years’ War. Notably, he fought and defeated an enemy challenger in single-combat, stripping his opponent of his weapons in an antiquated fashion. According to scholars, this type of combat “was rarely practiced in this period; Jonson's victory would have brought him to the notice of his superior officers.”

ES: Jonson returned to England by 1592 (likely with the first group of troops returning home from the Eighty Years’ War) and was married in 1594 to Anne Lewis. They had several children; unfortunately, Jonson would end up outliving all of them. Jonson would also later refer to Anne as “a shrew yet honest.” Like William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, the couple appeared to live separately throughout Jonson’s life. The reasons for this separation may have had little to do with the state of their marital relations and may have been more of a practical choice  for Jonson’s career (or at the insistence of one of his patrons or due to legal troubles we’ll talk more about). 

KS: In another similarity to Shakespeare, it is unclear when exactly Jonson became involved with the theatre scene in London. During his early career, he may have worked as a journeyman performer with a traveling company where he performed the leading role of Hieronimo in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. Reportedly, Jonson was “never a good actor, but an excellent instructor,” and once he established himself as a writer, Jonson left acting altogether (unlike Shakespeare). During these very early years of his career, Jonson also wrote “get-penny” plays which were quickly written, financially motivated plays. 

ES: By 1597, he was writing for Philip Henslowe’s theatre company, the Lord Admiral’s Men. He was paid by Henslowe to finish the (now lost) satire play Isle of Dogs by Thomas Nashe, which was performed later that year at The Swan. For reasons lost to historical record, Isle of Dogs was apparently very offensive to the crown, which led to the Privy Council ordering the closure of all London theatres on July 28, 1597 and the arrest of Ben Jonson along with two fellow actors. 

KS: By 1598, Jonson was also associated with The Curtain, and his play, Every Man in His Humor was performed there that fall by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and featured William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage in leading roles (likely Burbage played the clever servant Brainworm while Shakespeare might have played Know’ell, the father who worries after his son). This play was a turning point in Jonson’s career and catapulted him into a new level of success as a playwright. 

ES: Shortly after the opening of Every Man in His Humor, and possibly while the play was still in performances, Jonson killed the actor Gabriel Spencer in a duel and was indicted on a charge of manslaughter. During his imprisonment for this crime, Jonson converted to Catholicism. Jonson was sentenced to the gallows, but he escaped a hanging by claiming “benefit of the clergy.” 

KS: Originally established to protect the clergy from receiving corporal punishment during the Middle Ages when it was difficult to determine who was a clergy member but few outside the clergy could read Latin, “benefit of clergy” applicants had to prove they could read a passage from the Latin Bible. As literacy grew, judges allowed convicts convicted of certain felonies to apply for benefit of clergy and used the benefit as more of a flexible test. As judges could determine the difficulty of the read passage, it allowed them to have a final say over whether or not to sentence convicts to corporal punishment. 

ES: As a convict who successfully pleaded the benefit of clergy, but who was convicted of manslaughter, Ben Jonson was branded on the thumb with an “F” for felon. This brand prevented Jonson from being able to plead the benefit of the clergy again, should he find himself facing the gallows again. Jonson would continue to have run-ins with the law throughout his career.  

KS: Jonson then wrote a sequel to Every Man in his Humor, which was (obviously) titled Every Man Out of his Humor. This play was first performed in November or December of 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at the recently opened Globe Theatre. It was an ambitious piece that attempted to be the English equivalent to a Greek comedy by Aristophanes and was the longest play written for the Elizabethan public theatre. However, it proved to be a disastrous flop which led Jonson to leave writing for the public theatres and work instead primarily with “private theatres” (such as Blackfriars’ and the Inns of Court) and children’s companies, namely the Children of the Queen’s Chapel. 

ES: During his time writing for the Children of the Queen’s Chapel, Jonson became embroiled in a feud that would be known as the “War of the Theatres.” This feud between Jonson and fellow playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker was fueled by Jonson reacting (perhaps over-sensitively) to a depiction of himself in a play of Marston’s. Jonson retaliated in his play Poetaster, depicting himself favorably alongside unfavorable caricatures of Marston and Dekker. Dekker then counter-attacked in his play Satiromastix, depicting Jonson as “a self-promoting, self-creating figure, shooting his quills like a porcupine and flicking 'inke in everie mans face'.” 

KS: Scholars now suggest that this “War of the Theatres” may have been, at least in part, contrived as a kind of early modern cross-promotion that elevated the careers of all three playwrights and their respective companies. Indeed, before, during, and after the “feud,” the theatre companies continuously shared actors and playwrights, and Jonson would later collaborate with both Marston and Dekker. In other words, the feud may have just been an elaborate marketing stunt. 

ES: Jonson produced a prolific amount of writing upon the ascension of King James I, including speeches for three out of the eight pageants that were performed for the Royal Entry to the City of London in March 1604 and multiple masques. It appears that he may have caught the attention of the royals because of a masque entitled Entertainment at Althorpe which was performed in the summer of 1603 for the entertainment of Queen Anne and Prince Henry on their journey from Edinburgh to London. 

KS: After James I’s ascension to the throne, Jonson continued to write for court masques (and would throughout the rest of his career). His collaborations with set designer Inigo Jones would eventually define the Jacobean era masques (for more on masques, check out our Twelfth Night episode on Plays for the Court). Jonson introduced new aspects to the masque form, including expanding the spoken portions of the masque to create more of a dramatic text, creating the concept of a dramatic action (or a through line) that ran through the evening’s entertainment, new motives for the arrivals of characters, and a sort of pre-show/opening act that became known as the “anti-masque.” 

ES: Even though he had become a royal favorite in the first decade of James’ reign, Jonson still often found himself in trouble with authorities. He was thrown out of the audience of a court masque (not one he wrote). He made enemies of courtiers and was brought before the privy council on charges of popery and treason after a production of Jonson’s play Sejanus His Fall in early 1604. And he was imprisoned (again) in 1605 for content that the court found offensive after the first performances of his play Eastward Ho!, which was written in collaboration with John Marston and George Chapman. 

KS: After his release from prison in 1605, Jonson attended a dinner party in early October. Among the other guests were many of the leading conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, including Robert Catesby and Francis Thresham. While Jonson’s involvement in the plot is ambiguous, it certainly would have been in its final stages of preparation. For more on the Gunpowder Plot, check out our mini episode on The Gunpowder Plot! After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, Jonson wrote a congratulatory poem to Lord Monteagle, who raised the alarm that foiled the plot. He called Lord Monteagle the savior of the nation and agreed to help Robert Cecil with the investigation of the conspiracy. Jonson also wrote to Cecil and suggested that the revelation of the conspiracy would convince many Catholics to convert to Protestantism. (This is interesting because, remember, Jonson had recently converted to Catholicism.

ES: However, Jonson was not one of those Catholics, and in 1606, he and his wife Anne were brought before the consistory court to explain why they hadn’t been showing up to Anglican services. Jonson claimed that his wife was innocent of this charge and vouched for her piety, but admitted that he had not received communion due to his own religious scruples. The couple was required to return to court at a later date to produce future proof that they had received communion. Jonson was further ordered to receive religious counseling from prominent figures in the church in the hopes of overcoming this “scruple.” During the six years between his court date and his return to the Church of England, Jonson wrote some of his more famous and popular comedies, including Volpone, or the Fox; Epicene, or, The Silent Woman; and The Alchemist. 

KS: In 1612, Jonson became the tutor to Sir Walter Ralegh’s son and traveled with the “knavishly inclined” Ralegh Junior to France and the Netherlands. Jonson returned to England by June 29, 1613, as he would later imply in his poem, “An Execration upon Vulcan” that he saw the Globe Theatre burn on the day that the cannon in Henry VIII misfired and ignited the thatched roof. 

ES: Prior to his trip with Ralegh Junior, he had begun to collect his writings from the previous two decades with an eye towards eventual publication. In May 1612, a book entitled Ben Jonson His Epigrams was entered into the Stationers’ Register. No copies survive, however, a contemporary did write about reading this book, so this collection (presumably of manuscripts) was published. 

KS: In November 1616, a printer named William Stansby published the Workes of Beniamin Jonson, a folio edition of Jonson’s collected works. Jonson worked closely on the production of the Workes though he likely did not have complete control over its printing and production. Contemporary observers were bemused by Jonson’s decision to include nine plays within the Workes, as the title promised more serious fare. At the time, plays were seen more as pop culture ephemera rather than literature worthy of print publication (especially in a folio edition alongside poems, epigrams, and court masques!) However, with this publication, Jonson “created a notion of authorial ownership and identity that is recognizably modern” over his plays, which had otherwise belonged to their theatres. The Workes would serve as a blueprint for other collected works of playwrights that would be printed layered in the century (especially in 1623!). 

ES: The publication of the Workes in 1616, the same year as Shakespeare’s death, cemented Jonson as the premier living author in England. In February of 1616, Jonson was awarded a royal pension which established him as Britain’s poet laureate. And it was at this point in his life, his late forties, when Jonson decided to leave London and walk to Edinburgh and back. During this trip, he stayed with William Drummond at Hawthornden Castle, whose private notes on their conversations during Jonson’s stay were later published and “vividly record Jonson's literary opinions and ambitions, his jokes, dreams, and personal reminiscences, along with much social gossip.” Drummond also wrote an evaluation of Jonson’s personality: “'He is a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and Scorner of others, given rather to losse a friend, than a Jest, jealous of every word and action of those about him (especially after drink, which is one of the Elements in which he liveth).”

KS: Jonson returned to London in 1619, and later that year he was conferred an honorary degree from Oxford. He began an era of quiet scholarship, was reportedly almost knighted, and was given a patent to become the master of the Revels if the current master of Revels and the next runner up both died before Jonson. He continued to write court masques every year through the end of King James’ life, except for 1619 when he was on his long walk. 

ES: In the mid-late 1620s, Jonson health was on the decline. He appears to have suffered a paralytic stroke in late 1627 or early 1628 and was affected by a “palsy” (possibly Parkinson’s disease). His health conditions were compounded by poverty–despite his pension and other grants from noble patrons, Jonson’s lifestyle was one of overspending and living beyond his income. 

KS: Despite his difficulties with health and money, Jonson continued to produce work, especially court masques. His final court masques were performed in 1631. He also returned to writing plays. His works during the final years of his life draw “imaginatively on northern traditions (including the stories of Robin Hood) and memories of his own Scottish journey many years earlier,” in stark contrast to the city plays of his early career. Theatrical success continued to evade Jonson, as none of these later plays proved successful.

ES: Jonson died in mid-August 1637. He was buried in Westminister Abbey, and his funeral was attended by most of the area’s nobility and gentry. A volume of memorial poems written by his Oxford friends was published in 1638, and a second folio edition of Jonson’s works was published in 1640-1641 with additional volumes containing his later plays and previously unpublished masques, plays, and other works. 

KS: He is remembered for his technically perfect and sharply contemporary comedies and as a writer of literary distinction who was considered by contemporaries to be equal to (or perhaps even better than) Shakespeare, and his influence can be seen in Restoration comedies. One of his greatest contributions is perhaps the idea of authorial ownership for playwrights and that plays were worthy of folio publication. Without his decision to gather and publish his own work, we might not ever have gotten the first folio of the works of William Shakespeare.

ES: Does that mean this podcast might not exist without Ben Jonson?

KS: Yes. I think that’s what that means. 

ES: Or Shakespeare wouldn’t have become as prominent because we would’ve lost more, if not all of his works to time. 

KS:  then maybe we’d be doing a podcast called “Jonson Anyone?” which sounds….

ES: Ok, we’ve gotten off-track…back to the first folio of William Shakespearer–Jonson wrote two poems for the front material of the first Folio. The first, entitled “To the Reader” which appears opposite the title page featuring the Droeshout engraving of Shakespeare reads: 

“This Figure, that thou here seest put,

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut:

Wherein the Graver had a strife

with Nature, to out-doo the life:

O, could he but have drawn his wit

As well in brass, as he hath hit

His face; the Print would then surpasse

All, that was ever in brasse.

But, since he cannot, Reader, looke

Not on his picture, but his Booke.”

KS: The second, entitled “To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare” reads: 

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,

Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;

While I confess thy writings to be such

As neither man nor muse can praise too much;

'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways

Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;

For seeliest ignorance on these may light,

Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;

Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance

The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;

Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,

And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise.

ES: These are, as some infamous bawd or whore

Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more?

But thou art proof against them, and indeed,

Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need.

I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!

My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room:

Thou art a monument without a tomb,

And art alive still while thy book doth live

And we have wits to read and praise to give.

KS: That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,

I mean with great, but disproportion'd Muses,

For if I thought my judgment were of years,

I should commit thee surely with thy peers,

And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,

Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,

From thence to honour thee, I would not seek

For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,

Euripides and Sophocles to us;

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,

Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

Tri'umph, my Britain, thou hast one to show

To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

ES: He was not of an age but for all time!

And all the Muses still were in their prime,

When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm

Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!

Nature herself was proud of his designs

And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines,

Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,

As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.

The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please,

But antiquated and deserted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family.

KS: Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art,

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

For though the poet's matter nature be,

His art doth give the fashion; and, that he

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat

Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same

(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame,

Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;

For a good poet's made, as well as born;

And such wert thou. Look how the father's face

Lives in his issue, even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines

In his well-turned, and true-filed lines;

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.

ES: Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,

That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere

Advanc'd, and made a constellation there!

Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage

Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage;

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night,

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.

KS: And that’s Ben Jonson!

ES: Thank you for listening to this episode. 

Quote of the Episode:

KS: From Hamlet, act two, scene two, spoken by Polonius, “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

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Works referenced:

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Editors of Poetry Foundation. “Ben Jonson.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ben-jonson.

Jonson, Ben. “To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr....” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44466/to-the-memory-of-my-beloved-the-author-mr-william-shakespeare.

Leech, Clifford. “Ben Jonson.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 7 Apr. 2024, www.britannica.com/biography/Ben-Jonson-English-writer.

Mabillard, Amanda. “Preface to The First Folio (1623).” William Shakespeare’s First Folio: The Preface to the First Folio, 21 Jan. 2022, www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/firstfolio.html.

“Research Guides: Shakespeare Studies: Ben Jonson.” Ben Jonson - Shakespeare Studies - Research Guides at New York University, New York University, 2024, guides.nyu.edu/shakespeare-studies/ben-johnson.

“Shakespeare First Folio: Folger Shakespeare Library.” Edited by Folger Shakespeare Library, Shakespeare First Folio | Folger Shakespeare Library, Folger Shakespeare Library, 2024, www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeare-in-print/first-folio/.

Shoemaker, Robert. “Punishment Sentences at the Old Bailey.” The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Digital Humanities Institute at the University of Sheffield, autumn 2023, www.oldbaileyonline.org/about/punishment.

Westminister Abbey. “Ben Jonson.” Westminster