Ben Jonson - Westminster Abbey History Ben Jonson Ben Jonson, dramatist and poet, is the only person buried in an upright position in Westminster Abbey. He was born on 11 June 1572 but little is known about his parents. The family was of Scottish descent and his father became a clergymen. He was educated at Westminster School at the expense of one of the masters there, William Camden, and later possibly attended St John's College, Cambridge. He went into trade as a bricklayer for a short time (his stepfather's occupation). In Flanders he fought with the English troops there and on returning to London he married, but no children survived him. He became an actor and playwright. In 1598 he killed a fellow actor in a duel but escaped hanging and was imprisoned as a felon for a short time. This incident does not seem to have affected his reputation. His play Every Man in his Humour included Shakespeare in its cast. Jonson was a well-known writer of masques and a tutor to Sir Walter Raleigh's son. He became Poet Laureate in 1619 (although it was not a formal appointment).

Burial Jonson always seemed to be poor, in spite of gifts from royalty, and he died in great poverty in August 1637 in a house near the Abbey. One story says that he begged "eighteen inches of square ground in Westminster Abbey" from King Charles I. Another story says that one day, being railed by the Dean of Westminster about being buried in Poets' Corner, the poet is said to have replied "I am too poor for that and no one will lay out funeral charges upon me. No, sir, six feet long by two feet wide is too much for me: two feet by two feet will do for all I want". "You shall have it" said the Dean. So Jonson was buried standing on his feet in the northern aisle of the Nave and not in Poets' Corner. At this period the design on the Nave floor included several lines of stones measuring eighteen inches square (the rest being in a lozenge pattern), to which Jonson was obviously referring in his conversation with the Dean.

The simple inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson", was said to have been cut at the expense of Jack Young who was walking by when the grave was covered and gave the mason eighteen pence to inscribe it. The inscription has also been ascribed to Sir William D'Avenant, Jonson's successor as Poet Laureate, on whose own gravestone in the Abbey the words "O Rare..." also appear. Jonson's original stone was moved in the l9th century to the base of the wall opposite the grave to preserve it when the whole nave floor was re-laid and many larger gravestones taken away. His grave site is today marked with a small grey lozenge stone, just to the east of the brass to John Hunter. The inscription is the same as on the original stone although Ben himself always used the form Jonson. In 1849, the place was disturbed by a burial nearby and the clerk of works saw the two leg bones of Jonson fixed upright in the sand and the skull came rolling down from a position above the leg bones into the newly made grave. There was still some red hair attached to it. It was seen again when Hunter's grave was dug.

Monument A monument to Jonson was erected in about 1723 by the Earl of Oxford and is in the eastern aisle of Poets' Corner. It includes a portrait medallion and the same inscription as on the gravestone (again shown as Johnson). At the base are three masks, linked by a ribbon through the eyes. This was designed and signed by James Gibbs and attributed to the sculptor J.M. Rysbrack. It seems Jonson was to have had a monument erected by subscription soon after his death but the English Civil War intervened. A photograph of the stone and monument can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library. Further reading: Peter Cunningham: Handbook of London, 1850 (reprint 1978 p.536) Arthur P.Stanley: Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey. Addenda to 1 stedition 1868 and Supplement to the 1st and 2 ndeditions p.117.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004 "Ben Jonson of Westminster" by Marchette Chute,1954 Related Links Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637) - Find A Grave Memorial Westminster Greater London, England Dramatist, Poet. One of the great playwrights of English literature, and a colorful representative of its Renaissance period. Jonson's finest work satirizes human foibles with comic realism, verbal brilliance and a remarkable gift for caricature. His reputation once rivaled that of his friend William Shakespeare . He was also a fine lyric poet and the foremost author of English masques (entertainments for the royal court). Jonson was a native of London. His clergyman father died a month before he was born and he was raised as the stepson of a bricklayer, whose trade he was obliged to enter after leaving Westminster School around 1589. Although this ended his formal education, his scholarly bent led him to become the most erudite of Elizabethan playwrights, proud of his knowledge of the Latin and Greek classics.

It wasn't long before he quit bricklaying to join the army, seeing action in Flanders, where he allegedly killed an enemy soldier in single combat and stripped him of his weapons. By the mid-1590s he was married and working as an actor - a rather bad one, it seems - and writer for the London stage. The first noteworthy event of Jonson's new profession was typically scandalous. For the Earl of Pembroke's Men he co-wrote a satirical play with Thomas Nashe , "The Isle of Dogs" (1597, now lost), that was banned as seditious by the Privy Council. Nashe fled London to escape arrest while Jonson and two of the actors were tossed into Marshalsea Prison for eight weeks. He then switched to the Lord Chamberlain's Men and won immediate fame with the hit "Every Man In His Humour", premiered in the Summer of 1598.

In it the makings of Jonson's mature style were already evident: the classical influences (especially the Roman comedies of Plautus ) brought up to date with a London setting and a new vogue for "humour comedy", in which each character is dominated by single "humour", or personality trait. We know that Shakespeare played one of the lead roles and it may have been at his urging that the Lord Chamberlain's Men presented the work. It marked the beginning of Jonson's association with the man he said he loved "on this side of idolatry". His career had just taken off when it nearly ended in disaster. On September 22, 1598, Jonson killed actor Gabriel Spencer in a duel at Hoxton Fields. What provoked it is unknown, though Spencer had been jailed with him over "The Isle of Dogs", after which they joined rival stage companies. Convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey, Jonson narrowly escaped execution by pleading "benefit of clergy", meaning he could read and write in Latin. Instead he was branded on his left thumb as a felon and his property was forfeited to the Crown.

While in Newgate Prison awaiting trial he became a Catholic, which would cause him further difficulties before he returned to the Protestant faith in 1610; but he remained unrepentant in his personal affairs. He plunged into the "War of the Theatres", a public feud he conducted against John Marston and Thomas Dekker , writers for a company of boy actors. Marston had fired the first shot by mocking Jonson's pride in his play "Histriomastix" (1599). Jonson, brushing up on his Aristophanes , retaliated with the comedies "Every Man Out of His Humour" (1599), "Cynthia's Revels" (1600), and "The Poetaster" (1601), which were answered by Marston's "Jack Drum's Entertainment" (1600) and "What You Will" (1601), and Dekker's "Satiromastix" (1601), all flinging charges of hackdom, egomania and cuckoldry at each other. Dekker suggested that Jonson "shouldst have been hang'd".

London theatregoers found the spat amusing enough for Shakespeare to allude to it in "Hamlet" (c. 1601). The combatants soon made peace and even became collaborators, leading some to speculate it was all a publicity stunt; Marston dedicated his best play, "The Malcontent" (1604), to Jonson. More controversy greeted Jonson's first surviving tragedy, "Sejanus" (1603), presented at The Globe with Shakespeare in the cast. Government officials imagined it was a veiled portrayal of executed rebel Robert Devereux , Earl of Essex, and Jonson was hauled before the Privy Council for questioning on suspicion of "popery and treason". The play itself was a flop, as was his later tragedy "Catiline" (1611). In 1605 he found himself briefly in prison again for "Eastward Ho", a comedy co-written with Marston and George Chapman . It had political humor and anti-Scottish sentiments that offended King James I , and according to Jonson the authors were threatened with having their ears and noses cut off. His final conflicts with the authorities were related to his Catholicism.

In October 1605 Jonson attended a dinner party at which Robert Catesby and other Gunpowder Plot conspirators were present. A subsequent investigation cleared the author of any involvement in their attempt to spark an anti-Protestant revolt by blowing up the House of Lords; but he was still accused of using his fame to attract others to the Catholic cause, and was fined as a recusant. Amazingly, none of this seriously affected his progress at the royal court. Since James' ascension in 1603 Jonson had become one of the king's favorites for writing court masques, light entertainments combining poetic drama, song and ballet. He would produce 36 of them over the next three decades. They show him at his most fanciful and learned, often drawing on mythological subjects, though he put his personal stamp on the genre by introducing the "anti-masque", a comic interlude that mocks the main plot. Beginning with "The Masque of Blackness" (1605) his frequent collaborator was architect-artist Inigo Jones , who surrounded Jonson's refined verse with dazzling sets, costumes and special effects.

Their stormy partnership brought the art of the English masque to its culmination, with such examples as "Hymenaei" (1606), "Oberon, the Faery Prince" (1611), "Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists" (1615), "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue" (1618), and "Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion" (1624). That art is long extinct, however. It is with the series of comedies Jonson wrote between 1605 and 1616 that his reputation truly rests: "Volpone, or The Fox" (1606), "Epicoene, or The Silent Woman" (1609), "The Alchemist" (1610), "Bartholomew Fair" (1614), and "The Devil is an Ass" (1616). Critics consider "Volpone" and "The Alchemist" his masterpieces.

Teeming with swindlers and their greedy, gullible victims, misers, lechers, fools, whores, and religious hypocrites, these plays satirize a world Jonson saw as amoral and corrupt. The point is succinctly made in the subplot of "The Devil is an Ass": an apprentice devil goes up to London to try his luck spreading evil, only to slink back to Hell defeated by humankind's endless capacities for deviousness. The year 1616 was in many ways a turning point for Jonson. Shakespeare died, and for the rest of his life Jonson was acknowledged as the preeminent man of English theatre. Although the title of Poet Laureate did not exist then, King James conferred upon him all the essentials of the position, including an annual pension; from then on he called himself "The King's Poet". In his collected "Works" (1616) he included his plays for consideration as serious literature, an unheard of idea at the time, and by doing so raised drama to a new level of respectability.

It set the crucial precedent for the publication of the Shakespeare First Folio in 1623, along with Jonson's prophetic appreciation of the author: "He was not of an age, but for all time". "Works" also contains some of his finest poetry, including his elegies to his young son and daughter and the famous "To Celia", with its opening line "Drink to me, only, with thine eyes". In the midst of these events the disappointing response to "The Devil Is an Ass" was a blow that turned him away from the public stage for nearly a decade. From 1618 to 1619 Jonson went on a walking tour of Scotland, where William Drummond of Hawthornden recorded their conversations. After his return he was awarded an honorary MA degree from Oxford University and invited to lecture on rhetoric at London's Gresham College. A 1623 fire that destroyed his library signalled the decline of Jonson's fortunes. King James died in 1625 and his successor, Charles I , ceased presenting masques for several years, leaving Jonson feeling neglected.

He returned to the London stage but none of his late plays, including "The Staple of News" (1625), "The New Inn" (1629), "The Magnetic Lady" (1632), and "A Tale of a Tub" (1633), approached the standard of his earlier triumphs; John Dryden called them his "dotages". In 1628 he suffered a debilitating stroke, but he continued to be productive and cantankerous as always. He cancelled an updated 1630 edition of his "Works" because he was unsatisfied with the printing quality, then broke with Inigo Jones in a creative dispute that damaged his standing at the new royal court. At his death he left two dramas unfinished, the pastoral play "The Sad Shepherd" and "Mortimer his Fall", a tragedy. Jonson brought his defiant individuality with him to the grave: he is the only person buried in Westminster Abbey standing on his feet. Several tales surround this odd disposition. One claims he wanted to be ready for the Resurrection; another that he asked for "18 inches of square ground in Westminster Abbey" from Charles I.

Since the death of Edmund Spenser it had become fashionable for London to inter its renowned authors in the Abbey's Poets' Corner, and in the best known version of the story the Dean of the church urged Jonson to accept the honor. He is said to have replied, "I am too poor for that, and no one will lay out funeral charges upon me. No sir, two feet by two feet will do for all I want". Whatever the reason, Jonson was buried upright in the northern aisle of the Nave of the Abbey, beneath a small square stone inscribed "O Rare Ben Johnson [sic]". A proper monument, paid for by subscription, was to have been erected for him soon after his death, but the English Civil War halted this plan and it was not until 1723 that Jonson's memorial tablet was dedicated in Poets' Corner. In the 19th Century his original stone was moved to the base of a nearby wall to protect it, and his grave is now marked by a lozenge stone bearing the same inscription.

Jonson was a larger-than-life character, a bear of a man at over six feet tall and 300 pounds, with a huge ego and the fearlessness to defend it. Drummond of Hawthornden recorded flashes of his mercurial personality: "He is a great lover and praiser of himself; a condemner and scorner of others; given rather to lose a friend than a jest...he is passionately kind and angry; careless either to gain or keep; vindictive, but, if he be well answered, at himself...oppressed with fantasy, which hath ever mastered his reason". The warmer aspects of Jonson's nature and his intellectual honesty brought him much aristocratic patronage and the friendships of Shakespeare, John Donne , Sir Walter Raleigh , William Herbert the Earl of Pembroke, and Francis Bacon , while legend has it he introduced the great playwrighting team of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher to each other.

In later years he lorded over a young circle of admirers who called themselves the "Sons of Ben" in gatherings at The Mermaid and other taverns, a group that included future "Cavalier poets" Robert Herrick , Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace, and playwright Richard Brome . For most of the 17th Century he was a major influence on Jacobean, Caroline, and Restoration era playwrights. During the 1700s Jonson's reputation suffered because he was unfairly compared to Shakespeare, but his status rose significantly in the 20th Century. In 2012 Cambridge University Press published his complete works, the first new scholarly edition in 60 years. (bio by: Bobb Edwards) Poets Laureate of Great Britain Poets Laureate of Great Britain Poets Laureate of Great Britain by J. Zimmerman Several of the other Laureates were famous poets, particularly Ted Hughes , Robert Southey , John Masefield , Sir John Betjeman , Cecil Day-Lewis , and the current Laureate, Andrew Motion . History and responsibilities. In Great Britain, the Poet Laureate is: The realm's official poet.

A member of the royal household. Charged with writing verses for court and national occasions (such as for a Royal Wedding or the New Year). Awarded the position for life. Chosen by the British reigning monarch, from a list of nominees that the Prime Minister compiles after a poet laureate dies. Shortly after the 1668, the position became the Poet Laureate of Great Britain in 1707, when The Act of Union created "Great Britain" as the political name of England, Scotland, and Wales. The name Laureate derives from the Latin laureatus ("crowned with laurel"). It comes from an ancient Roman tradition of honoring a person (especially a poet) who has shown excellence of achievement. The honor is signified by presenting the person with a wreath of laurel leaves. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on the Poets Laureate of Great Britain. What does "Laureate" mean? Answer . Who was the best? Most frequently this is said to be Tennyson . John Dryden (1631-1700). Laureate 1668-88.

Appointed in 1668 by King Charles II, who gave John Dryden a formal royal warrant that awarded him the official titles of Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal. This role continued under King James II. As a powerful satirist, Dryden was a strong advocate and spokesman for his monarch, and "the best poet, dramatist, translator and critic of the age" [ Levin in Verses of the Poets Laureate] In 1689, sacked [or fired] by William III for failing to take an oath of allegiance. Thomas Shadwell (1643?-1692). Laureate 1689-92. The successful dramatist Thomas Shadwell was chosen in large part because he was a Protestant Whig, essential to replace the Catholic Dryden. met an inglorious end in 1693, A weak poet, a heavy drinker, and an opium user, Shadwell died from an overdose of opium, which he took in part to relieve his gout. He was said to have found the laureateship unimportant.

Disrespected by John Dryden , among others, for his poetry as well as for his politics. Shadwell wrote a yearly ode on the monarch's birthday, and introduced the tradition of writing a New Year ode; his odes are crashingly uninspired and mechanistic, as if written by an unusually dimwitted computer program. Nahum Tate (1652-1715). Laureate 1692-1715. Born in Dublin, Tate was awarded the Poet Laureate position (and its £100 per year) but the post of Historiographer Royal (and its annual £200) became a separate assignment. Tate is most known today for his authorship of the widely loved Christmas carol "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night". He is notorious for his (creative?) revision of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, giving it a happy ending. In response to public events, Tate wrote poems for victories against the French (1704), the Act of Union between the Parliaments of England and Scotland (1707), and the signing of the Peace of Utrecht with France (1713).

Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). Laureate 1715-18. Nicholas Rowe was celebrated as a dramatist rather than as a poet. The Poet Laureate's role was now general praise of the sovereign, rather than political and historical. In addition to the annual New Year ode, the Laureate acquired the duty of writing a birthday ode to the monarch, a practice which was to last over 100 years. Laurence Eusden (1688-1730). Eusden never published a book of poetry. His work is mediocre. Colley Cibber (1671-1757). The poetry of dramatist Colley Cibber was conscientious but not inspired. William Whitehead (1715-85). Laureate 1757-85. [The appointment was first offered to and declined by Thomas Gray.] William Whitehead (a respectable though perhaps dull dramatist) was good humored and amiable. For example, he defended the poetry of Laureates in a comic poem "A Pathetic Apology For All Laureates, Past, Present, And To Come".

Whitehead was conscientious, and saw himself as a non-partisan spokesman for the whole country. Astonishingly for a political appointee, he appeared to see no requirement "to defend the King or support the government". Sadly, this reflects the idea that the Laureate's influence had weakened so much that the official poems were unlikely to influence opinions, even though the times were important politically, with rebellion in the American colonies and war in Europe. Thomas Wharton (1728-90). Laureate 1785-90. Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Wharton was the only eighteenth-century laureate who was not primarily a dramatist. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge admired his work. Henry James Pye (1745-1813). Laureate 1790-1813. Before Pye's appointment, the Sovereign or the Lord Chamberlain (a member of the Royal Household) awarded the Poet Laureateship directly. William Pitt (the first Prime Minister involved in appointing a Laureate) offered the position to Henry James Pye, a politician more than a poet. Thereafter, the Prime Minister submits names for royal approval.

Then the monarch commands the Lord Chamberlain to issue a warrant of appointment. Robert Southey (1774-1843). Laureate 1813-43. [In a bizarre double-offer the appointment was offered to two writers concurrently. Fortunately, Sir Walter Scott turned down the approach by Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool.] Robert Southey accepted the suggestion of the post from the Prince Regent. When Scott declined the offer, he suggested Southey also, so the situation ended well. During Southey's tenure, George IV became monarch in 1820, and abandoned the requirement for regular odes to the monarch. William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Laureate 1843-50. William Wordsworth, at 73, was the oldest Poet Laureate to be appointed. He accepted the position on the agreement that he would not have obligations to write poetry on demand. Since Wordsworth, the job of Poet Laureate has been purely honorary, and appointees have been able to interpret the role as they wish. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92).

Laureate 1850-92. [The appointment was first offered to and (to our benefit) declined by Samuel Rogers.] Alfred Tennyson raised the stature of the Poet Laureate hugely. His laureate poems include The Charge Of The Light Brigade (the suicidal charge by the Light Brigade down a valley at Balaclava during the Crimean war). Tennyson's death was mourned publicly by millions. In respect, no appointment was made to the post of Poet Laureate for four years. Alfred Austin (1835-1913). A pompous man, least successful of the Poets Laureate. Robert Bridges (1844-1930). Uninterested in fame and praise, Bridges wrote little and destroyed his papers before his death. John Masefield (1878-1967). Laureate 1930-67. Born in Ledbury, Herefordshire, England, Masefield apprenticed to be a merchant marine officer. While training, he became ill in Chile, returned to England, then worked in factories and bars in the United States.

In 1897 he returned to England, working on newspapers and his own writing (poems, stories, and plays). Masefield published his first volume of poems in 1902. He served during World War I in the Red Cross in France and on a hospital ship at Gallipoli. His simple and moving poems include the famous Sea Fever. Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-72). Laureate 1968-72. Anglo-Irish Cecil Day-Lewis was a poet, critic, and educator who enjoyed the honor of being the Poet Laureate. A student at Oxford with Auden. A committed Communist though naive politically. Hi poetry are often romantic and melancholy. Also he wrote detective stories (using the pseudonym Nicholas Blake). Sir John Betjeman (1906-84). Laureate 1972-84. Born in Highgate (North London). Sir John Betjeman wrote humorous and accessible poetry. Betjeman commemorated royal events such as The Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. Ted Hughes (1930-98).

Laureate 1984-1998. [Appointed on the refusal of poet Philip Larkin .] Born in Yorkshire. A fierce, sometimes ferocious, poet of the natural and the mythological worlds, of "the struggle in the soil as well as in the soul" [ Levin in Verses of the Poets Laureate] . Also authored poetry and plays for children. Despite the "no obligations" clause, Hughes did write in commemoration of royal events, such as the christening of Prince Henry of Wales in 1985. Andrew Motion (1952-present). Laureate 1999-2012. Buy Verses of the Poets Laureate: from John Dryden to Andrew Motion , by Phillis Levin (Editor) and Andrew Motion (Introduction): describes and shows the work of the first 19 poets appointed as Poet Laureate since Charles II created the first in 1668. Andrew Motion, an acclaimed poet and biographer, teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He promotes poetry among young people.

His poems addressing many public events as well and royal occasions, including the 100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. A critic, and a free-form poet who interweaves the personal, the historical, the legendary, and the political. Carol Ann Duffy (1955-present). Buy Selected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy , first female Poet Laureate. Carol Ann Duffy (poet, university professor, playwright, and freelance writer) is the first woman and the first Scottish-born poetry to be appointed Poet Laureate. She graduated with a degree in philosophy from the University of Liverpool in 1977. Her books like Feminine Gospels (2002) and Mrs Scrooge show her skill in long narrative poems, written in an accessible style and often including surreal imagery. Other work, like Rapture (2005) are poems of passion and love. She also writes poetry (such as The Hat, 2007) for children. Not-quite Poets Laureate of Great Britain. These poets were not Poets Laureate, for the reasons given.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637), a playwright and poet, a volatile satirist of explosive temperament and "a great lover and praiser of himself", was not formally appointed as Poet Laureate. John Dryden was the first appointed Poet Laureate, as shown by the official royal record (starts in a new window). At best, Jonson was a "common law" poet laureate (as in "common law" husband). Some believe Jonson to be the greatest English poet and dramatist of the seventeenth century. Many praise his charm and good humor. His vigor and productivity is clear. Jonson learned the trade of bricklayer, fought with English troops in Flanders, then returned to London to become an actor and playwright, a writer of masques (short pageant-like plays), and a tutor to Sir Walter Raleigh's son. In 1597 Jonson was imprisoned for involvement in the satire The Isle of Dogs, which authorities found seditious. He was tried for killing a fellow actor in a duel in 1598. Imprisioned for this, he converted to Catholicism to be spared death for murder.

He was released provided that he forfeit all his possessions, and that he receive a felon's brand on his thumb. Charged with treason for his tragedy Sejanus, His Fall (1603) and then briefly imprisoned for views in Eastward Ho (1604), Jonson (a Catholic) was under deep suspicion after Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot (1605). This situation may have motivated him, shortly thereafter, to reconvert to Anglicanism. He did become court poet to King James I. One of Jonson's most famous poems, "To Celia", begins "Drink to me, only, with thine eyes...". Buried upright in Westminster Abbey, standing on his feet in the northern aisle of the Nave (and not in Poets' Corner) beneath the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson" William Davenant, or Sir William D'Avenant. After Jonson's death, dramatist Davenant [D'Avenant] inherited Jonson's office and pension, again as an unofficial appointment. Links Poets Laureate of the United States of America . Books about the Poets Laureate of Great Britain.

Buy Verses of the Poets Laureate: from John Dryden to Andrew Motion , by Phillis Levin (Editor) and Andrew Motion (Introduction): describes and shows the work of the first 19 poets appointed as Poet Laureate since Charles II created the first in 1668. Related Books. Ben Jonson, dramatist, poet, and actor | Benjamin Jonson (c.… | Flickr Lisby By: Lisby Ben Jonson, dramatist, poet, and actor Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637) 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.

Although he was born in Westminster, London, Jonson claimed his family was of Scottish Border country descent, and this claim may have been supported by the fact that his coat of arms bears three spindles or rhombi, a device shared by a Borders family, the Johnstones of Annandale. His father died a month before Ben's birth, and his mother remarried two years later, to a master bricklayer. Jonson attended school in St. Martin's Lane, and was later sent to Westminster School, where one of his teachers was William Camden. Jonson remained friendly with Camden, whose broad scholarship evidently influenced his own style, until the latter's death in 1623. On leaving, Jonson was once thought to have gone on to the University of Cambridge; Jonson himself said that he did not go to university, but was put to a trade immediately: a legend recorded by Fuller indicates that he worked on a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. He soon had enough of the trade, probably bricklaying, and spent some time in the Low Countries as a volunteer with the regiments of Francis Vere.

In conversations with the poet William Drummond, subsequently published as the Hawthornden Manuscripts, Jonson reports that while in the Netherlands he killed an opponent in single combat and stripped him of his weapons.[1] Ben Jonson married, some time before 1594, a woman he described to Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest." His wife has not been definitively identified, but she is sometimes identified as the Ann Lewis who married a Benjamin Jonson at St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge. The registers of St. Martin's Church state that his eldest daughter Mary died in November, 1593, when she was only six months old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later (Jonson's epitaph to him On My First Sonne was written shortly after), and a second Benjamin died in 1635. For five years somewhere in this period, Jonson lived separately from his wife, enjoying instead the hospitality of Lord Aubigny. By the summer of 1597, Jonson had a fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men, then performing under Philip Henslowe's management at The Rose.

John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was evidently more valuable to the company as a writer. By this time, Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Lord Admiral's Men; in 1598, he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survive, however. An undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play. In 1597, a play co-written with Thomas Nashe entitled The Isle of Dogs was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were subsequently issued by Elizabeth's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and famously charged with "Leude and mutynous behavior", while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth.

A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing another man, an actor Gabriel Spenser, in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields,[1] (today part of Hoxton). Tried on a charge of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was subsequently released by benefit of clergy, a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse in Latin, forfeiting his 'goods and chattels' and being branded on his left thumb.[2] In 1598, Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in his Humour, capitalising on the vogue for humour plays that had been begun by George Chapman with An Humorous Day's Mirth. William Shakespeare was among the first cast. This play was followed the next year by Every Man Out of His Humour, a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes. It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published, it proved popular and went through several editions. Jonson's other work for the theater in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was unsurprisingly marked by fighting and controversy.

Cynthia's Revels was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It satirized both John Marston, who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness, probably in Histrio-Mastix, and Thomas Dekker, against whom Jonson's animus is not known. Jonson attacked the same two poets again in 1601's Poetaster. Dekker responded with Satiromastix, subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The final scene of this play, whilst certainly not to be taken at face value as a portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummond's report - boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays, and calling attention to himself in any available way. This "War of the Theatres" appears to have been concluded with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker a rogue.

Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on Eastward Ho, a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment landed both authors in jail for a brief time. At the beginning of the reign of James I of England in 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the reign of the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional demand for masques and entertainments introduced with the new reign and fostered by both the king and his consort Anne of Denmark. Jonson flourished as a dramatist during the first decade or so of James's reign; by 1616, he had produced all the plays on which his reputation as a dramatist depends. These include the tragedy of Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved only limited success, and the comedies Volpone, (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil is an Ass (1616).

The Alchemist and Volpone appear to have been successful at once. Of Epicoene, Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's subtitle was appropriate, since its audience had refused to applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition. While his life during this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the 1590s, his financial security was still not assured. In 1603, Overbury reported that Jonson was living on Aurelian Townsend and "scorning the world." His trouble with English authorities continued. In 1603, he was questioned by the Privy Council about Sejanus, a politically-themed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part.

After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, he appears to have been asked by the Privy Council to attempt to prevail on a certain priest to cooperate with the government; the priest he found was Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession(Teague, 249). At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career as a writer of masques for James' court. The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) are but two of the some two dozen masques Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne; the latter was praised by Swinburne as the consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing, and spectacle. On many of these projects he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theaters for a decade. Jonson later told Drummond that he had made less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together.

1616 saw a pension of 100 marks (about £60) a year conferred upon him, leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate. This sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to publish the first volume of the folio collected edition of his works that year. Other volumes followed in 1640–41 and 1692. [See: Ben Jonson folios.] In 1618, Ben Jonson set out for his ancestral Scotland on foot. He spent over a year there, and the best-remembered hospitality which he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. In the postscript added by Drummond, he is described as "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others". While in Scotland, he was made an honorary citizen of Edinburgh.

On returning to England, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University. The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. In addition to his popularity on the public stage and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney) and Lady Mary Wroth. This connection with the Sidney family provided the impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the country house poem To Penshurst. The 1620s began a lengthy and slow decline for Jonson. He was still well-known; from this time dates the prominence of the Sons of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation. Jonson returned to writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest for the study of the culture of Charles I's England.

The Staple of News, for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to the dismal failure of The New Inn; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience (the Ode to Myself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of the "Tribe of Ben," to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognize his own decline.[3] The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Justly or not, Jonson felt neglected by the new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a tierce of wine. Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write.

At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts are extant, this represents a remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the early 1630s he also conducted a correspondence with James Howell, who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones. Jonson is buried in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson" (sic) set in the slab over his grave.

It has been suggested that this could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), which would indicate a deathbed return to Catholicism, but the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare".[4] Researchers suggest that the tribute came from William D’Avenant, Jonson’s successor as Poet Laureate, as the same phrase appears on his gravestone nearby.[4][clarification needed] The fact that he was buried in an upright grave could be an indication of his reduced circumstances at the time of his death,[5] although it has also been written that Jonson asked for a grave exactly 18 inches square from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space.[6] The same source claims that the epitaph came from the remark of a passerby to the grave. Done

Question: Which English poet was buried upright in London’s Westminster Abbey in 1637?
Answer: Ben Johnson