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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He worked shortly as an actor in «The Admiral's Men», but soon moved on to writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson's works are particularly recognizable because of his consistencies in style, intricacy of plot, characterization and setting. He focused on creating works that implemented elements of the realistic as well as the absurd. Jonson's most performed play, and the one that sparked a period of great success for the playwright, is «Volpone, or The Fox.» Volpone, a Venetian con artist, is feigning to be on his death bed, pitting several aspirant heirs against one another. The dark comedy is as much serious as it is amusing, exposing the audience to greedy, corrupt characters that at first seem absurdly fictional, but who ultimately reveal a number of societal flaws.

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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. His career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in «The Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Although Jonson attained a long and thriving career, the majority of his major works for which he is revered were produced between 1605 and 1620. Part of his late comedies, dubbed by Dryden as his «dotages,» «The Staple of News» is a satire on the newspaper and news agency business that was quickly developing at the time. The plot draws on at least five plays by Aristophanes, and tells the story of the plutocratic Lady Pecunia, an array of wooers and jeerers, and a group of women who represent «females out of control,» a common theme of Jonson's work.

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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. His career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in «The Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Although Jonson attained a long and thriving career, the majority of his major works for which he is revered were produced between 1605 and 1620. In his declining years he produced a number of works dubbed by Dryden as his «dotages,» and although less popular than his earlier plays, they remain significant for their portrayal of Charles I's England. His final comedy, «The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconciled,» tells the story of a chaotic but revealing dinner party, with the wealthy Lady Loadstone, her attractive young niece, Placentia Steel, a group of amorous but foolish suitors, and a few out of control female servants.

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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. His career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in the «Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson had a knack for absurdity and hypocrisy, a trait that made him immensely popular in the 17th century Renaissance period. From about 1599-1601, a rivalry emerged between Jonson and the playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker dubbed Poetomachia, or War of the Theatres. Scholars agree that «The Poetaster, or His Arrangement,» portrays all three playwrights in the characters of Horace, as Jonson, Crispinus as Marston, and Demetrius Fannius as Dekker. The term poetaster refers to a poet of inferior verse, so it is no surprise that the play is a scathing attack on the talent and artistry of Jonson's rivals.

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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. Jonson worked shortly as an actor in «The Admiral's Men», but soon moved on to writing original plays for the troupe. His works are particularly recognizable because of their consistencies in style, intricacy of plot, characterization and setting. One of his early comedies, «The Case is Altered,» strays from the playwright's normal works in both structure and plot. These anomalies and the work's exclusion from Jonson's three folio collections lead to confusion among scholars regarding its authorship. The story borrows plots from two plays by Plautus, «Captivi» and «Aulularia,» with its characters and events recreated and transported to Elizabethan England. This was Jonson's first attempt at a comedy of humors, to be followed by his more successful «Every Man in His Humour» and «Every Man Out of His Humour».

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Benjamin Jonson's career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in «The Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson had a literary knack for absurdity and hypocrisy, a trait that made him immensely popular in the 17th century Renaissance period. However, his reputation diminished somewhat in the Romantic era, when he began to be unfairly compared to Shakespeare. Although nearly all of his most famous works were produced between 1605 and 1620, he continued to write until his death in 1637. «The New Inn, or The Light Heart» was performed in 1629, only a year after Jonson suffered a stroke. The story takes place in an inn-house, where Lady Frances Frampul meets the melancholy Lord Lovel, and a complex series of far-fetched events ensues.

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Benjamin Jonson was a Renaissance dramatist, poet, and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. Jonson focused on creating works that implemented elements of the realistic as well as the absurd. Jonson’s most performed play, and the one that sparked a period of great success for the playwright, is “Volpone, or The Fox”. Volpone, a Venetian con artist, is feigning to be on his death bed, pitting several aspirant heirs against one another. The dark comedy is as much serious as it is amusing, exposing the audience to greedy, corrupt characters that at first seem absurdly fictional, but who ultimately reveal a number of societal flaws. Also included in the is collection are “The Alchemist”, a comedy which relates the fraudulent enterprise of a butler when left in charge of his master’s house who has fled to the country during an outbreak of the plague; “The Epicoene”, which concerns the farcical scheme of Dauphine to get his inheritance from his uncle; and “Bartholomew Fair”, the comedic tale of a plot to win the widow Dame Purecraft from the hypocritical Puritan Zeal-of-the-Land Busy. All together this collection presents Jonson’s most admired and often performed works. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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Ben Jonson's career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in the «Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson's works are particularly recognizable because of his consistencies in style, intricacy of plot, characterization and setting. He focused on creating works that implemented elements of the realistic as well as the absurd. His reputation diminished somewhat in the Romantic era, when he began to be unfairly compared to Shakespeare; however, after the Restoration, many of his plays, including «Epicoene,» was revived and well appreciated. The story takes place in London, where a wealthy old man named Morose has made plans to disinherit his nephew by marrying. The dejected young man forms a revenge plot on his uncle, secretly arranging a calamitous marriage, complete with all the comedic elements expected of Jonson's work.

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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. His career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in the «Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson's work was primarily in comedies for the public theatres, and although none of his earliest tragedies survived, «Catiline, His Conspiracy» was one of two later tragedies that did. Jonson drew on the works of historians like Plutarch, Dio Cassius and Marcus Tullius Cicero to write the play, which recounts the story of Lucius Sergius Catilina, the Roman politician and conspirator of the 1st century B.C. It was written in the tradition of a Senecan closet drama, relying more on language than on action or violence, which made it less popular than Jonson's satirical and comical works.

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Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He worked shortly as an actor in «The Admiral's Men», but soon moved on to writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson's work was primarily in comedies for the public theatres, very few of his tragedies have survived. «Sejanus, His Fall,» is the earliest known attempt by the playwright at tragedy, and although the play is less popular than his comedic works, it is a valuable look at Jonson's view of the repressive totalitarian state. Based on a tragedy about Lucius Aerlius Seianus and the Roman emperor Tiberius, the play does not conform to the archetype of classical tragedy; it spans several months and various locales, and graphically violent scenes are delivered on stage. It has been speculated that the story of the tyrannical emperor and the villainous Sejanus represents James I and his corrupt court.

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