Jonson
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
BENJAMIN, commonly called BEN JONSON, a celebrated English dramatist, the contemporary of Shakespeare; born in Westminster, and friend England , in 1573. When young, he ran away from home and entered the army, servin serving first in Flanders. On his he went to Cambridge, but poverty return obliged him to leave the university and take to the stage. At first he was not very either as an actor or an author, and successful, having killed another actor in a duel, he was imprisoned and narrowly escaped with life. On being released from confinement he married, and recommenced was writing for the stage, to which he perencouraged by Shakespeare, who pieces. In 1598 formed in one of his Every Man he produced his comedy of " followed by in His Humor," which was reign of a new play every year, till the in the James I., when he was employed at court. masques and entertainments Marston in He joined Chapman and "Eastward Hoe," writing the comedy of Scotch nawhich so grossly libelled the were committed to tion that the authors prison. He soon regained the favor of the favor the king, and for the remainder of that continued in high favor as a Ender of 1 reign he favor as kind of superintendent of the court appointed poetf the cou revels. In 1619 he was $500, and a pointed po laureate, with a salary of $500 $500, butt of canary wine yearly from the . Want of economy, howking's cellars though ever, kept him constantly poor, city. His he had a pension from the ," "Volprincipal plays are "Sejanus ." pone," "Epicæne," and "The Alchemist , and was buried He died Aug. 16, 1637 where a tablet in Westminster Abbey, has been erected to his memory in Poet's Rare Corner, with the inscription, "O Ben Jonson."
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The life Collier's sketched in 1921 still stands in outline, though scholars now date his birth to about June 1572 rather than 1573, place the fatal duel with the actor Gabriel Spencer in 1598 (after, not before, "Every Man in His Humour"), and doubt the Cambridge episode: Jonson was a Westminster School boy under William Camden who later took honorary degrees at Oxford. Two details are simply garbled: he was never formally appointed poet laureate, the royal pension and the annual butt of canary being informal marks of favour; and the epitaph over his upright grave in the Abbey's north aisle reads "O rare Ben Jonson," the word "rare" having drifted into the previous line of Collier's mangled text. What has moved most is editing and reputation. Herford and Simpson's eleven-volume edition (1925-52) and the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (2012, with an electronic version) replaced Victorian texts, "Volpone" and "The Alchemist" hold the modern repertory, and in 2009 James Loxley identified a manuscript account by a companion of Jonson's 1618 walk to Scotland.
Written for this edition, 2026.