Ben Jonson was the greatest of Shakespeare's contemporaries. In the
century following his death he was seen by many as the finest of
all English writers, living or dead. His fame rested not only on
the numerous plays he had written for the theatre, but on his
achievements over three decades as principal masque-writer to the
early Stuart court, where he had worked in creative, and often
stormy, collaboration with Inigo Jones. One of the most
accomplished poets of the age, he had become - in fact if not in
title - the first Poet Laureate in England. Jonson's life was full
of drama. Serving in the Low Countries as a young man, he overcame
a Spanish adversary in single combat in full view of both the
armies. His early satirical play, The Isle of Dogs, landed him in
prison, and brought all theatrical activity in London to a
temporary - and very nearly to a permanent - standstill. He was
'almost at the gallows' for killing a fellow actor after a quarrel,
and converted to Catholicism while awaiting execution. He supped
with the Gunpowder conspirators on the eve of their planned coup at
Westminster. After satirizing the Scots in Eastward Ho! he was
imprisoned again; and throughout his career was repeatedly
interrogated about plays and poems thought to contain seditious or
slanderous material. In his middle years, twenty stone in weight,
he walked to Scotland and back, seemingly partly to fulfil a wager,
and partly to see the land of his forebears. He travelled in Europe
as tutor to the mischievous son of Sir Walter Ralegh, who 'caused
him to be drunken and dead drunk' and wheeled provocatively through
the streets of Paris. During his later years he presided over a
sociable club in the Apollo Room in Fleet Street, mixed with the
most learned scholars of his day, and viewed with keen interest the
political, religious, and scientific controversies of the day. Ian
Donaldson's new biography draws on freshly discovered writings by
and about Ben Jonson, and locates his work within the social and
intellectual contexts of his time. Jonson emerges from this study
as a more complex and volatile character than his own
self-declarations (and much modern scholarship) would allow, and as
a writer whose work strikingly foresees - and at times
pre-emptively satirizes - the modern age.
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