The Collected Works of Ben Jonson E-Book

Ben Jonson

• Herausgeber: PergamonMedia
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or all the significant works - the Œuvre - of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook - easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: • The Alchemist • Volpone; Or, The Fox • Every Man in His Humor • Every Man out of His Humour • Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman • The Haunters & The Haunted • Sejanus: His Fall • Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems • The Poetaster • Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love • Every Man in His Humour • etc.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

THE ALCHEMIST

INTRODUCTION

TO THE READER.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

SUBTLE, the Alchemist.

ARGUMENT.

PROLOGUE.

ACT 1. SCENE 1.1.

ACT 2. SCENE 2.1.

ACT 3. SCENE 3.1.

ACT 4. SCENE 4.1.

ACT 5. SCENE 5.1.

GLOSSARY

PARTED, endowed, talented.

PARTICULAR, individual person.

VOLPONE; OR, THE FOX

Contents

INTRODUCTION

VOLPONE; OR, THE FOX

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

VOLPONE, a Magnifico.

NOTARIO, the Register.

LADY WOULD-BE, Sir Politick's Wife.

THE ARGUMENT.

V olpone, childless, rich, feigns sick, despairs,

ACT 1. SCENE 1.1.

ACT 2. SCENE 2.1.

ACT 3. SCENE 3.1.

ACT 4. SCENE 4.1.

ACT 5. SCENE 5.1

GLOSSARY

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR

(The Anglicized Edition)

By Ben Jonson

Contents

INTRODUCTION

The following is a complete list of his published works:—

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

GLOSSARY

EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN

Contents

INTRODUCTION

EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN

PROLOGUE

ANOTHER.

ACT 1.

ACT 2.

ACT 3.

ACT 4.

ACT 5.

GLOSSARY

EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR

Contents

INTRODUCTION

EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

GLOSSARY

SEJANUS: HIS FALL

Contents

INTRODUCTION

COMPLETE LIST OF HIS PUBLISHED WORKS:—

DRAMAS. —

SEJANUS: HIS FALL

TO THE NO LESS NOBLE BY VIRTUE THAN BLOOD

TO THE READERS

THE ARGUMENT

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

GLOSSARY

ABATE, cast down, subdue.

THE POETASTER OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT

INTRODUCTION

THE POETASTER: OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT

TO THE VIRTUOUS, AND MY WORTHY FRIEND MR. RICHARD MARTIN

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

GLOSSARY

CYNTHIA'S REVELS

Ben Jonson's Plays With An Introduction By Prof. Felix E. Schelling Volume One Everyman's Library Edited By Ernest Rhys

POETRY AND THE DRAMA THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF BEN JONSON VOLUME ONE FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION: 1910 REPRINTED: 1915

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CYNTHIA'S REVELS:

OR, THE FOUNTAIN OF SELF-LOVE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

GLOSSARY

Discoveries MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER AND SOME POEMS

INTRODUCTION

SYLVA

TIMBER;OR, DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIARNOTION OF THE TIMES.

What is a Poet?

What mean, you by a Poem?

But how differs a Poem from what we call Poesy?

Of the magnitude and compass of any fable, epic or dramatic.

SOME POEMS.

TO WILLIAM CAMDEN.

ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER.

ON MY FIRST SON.

TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

OF LIFE AND DEATH.

INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER.

EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY,A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CHAPEL.

EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H.

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US.

TO CELIA.

THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS.

IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND.A SONG APOLOGETIC.

ODE

I.

THE TURN.

THE COUNTER-TURN.

THE STAND.

II.

THE TURN

THE COUNTER-TURN

THE STAND

III.

THE TURN

THE COUNTER-TURN

THE STAND

IV.

THE TURN

THE COUNTER-TURN

THE STAND

PRÆLUDIUM.

EPODE.

AN ELEGY.

FOOTNOTES

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR

By Ben Jonson

Contents

INTRODUCTION

BEN JONSON'S PLAYS

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR*

ACT I

ACT II.

ACT III.

ACT IV.

ACT V.

GLOSSARY

THE ALCHEMIST

By Ben Jonson

INTRODUCTION

The greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.

Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,

"All that I am in arts, all that I know;"

and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.

In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life.

How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres—well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title—accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602.

Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later.