Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonsonwas an English playwright, poet, actor and literary critic of the 17th century, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours. He is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour, Volpone, or The Foxe, The Alchemistand Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedyand for his lyric poetry; he is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth11 June 1572
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.
Good morning to the day: and next, my gold! - / Open the shrine that I may see my saint.
In his adversity I ever prayed, that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.
I do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth rendered to the use of man.
If he were / To be made honest by an act of parliament, / I should not alter in my faith of him.
Still to be neat, still to be drest, / As you were going to a feast.
That for which all virtue now is sold, and almost every vice- almighty gold
Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears; / Yet slower yet, O faintly, gentle springs.
Lady, it is to be presumed, / Though art's hid causes are not found, / All is not sweet, all is not sound.
If you be sick, your own thoughts will make you sick
For a good poet's made as well as born.
The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.
This is the very womb and bed of enormity.