Shakespeare’s friend and fellow-playwright Ben Jonson tells us how we should measure success.
ByBen Jonson1572-1637
Ben Jonson1572-1637
Ben Jonson was an influential Jacobean playwright, poet, and literary critic. Trained in the classics at Westminster School, he worked as an actor before becoming one of Renaissance London’s premier dramatists. He popularised the ‘comedy of humours’, and achieved lasting acclaim with satirical masterpieces such as Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610). In 1616, he became England's unofficial poet laureate and published his collected Workes, elevating drama to a respected literary art. Culturally, Jonson ranks second only to Shakespeare among early modern English dramatists. His sharp social satire, mastery of court masques, and disciplined classical style deeply shaped English neoclassicism and inspired a generation of ‘Cavalier’ poets.
Ernest Tomlinson: Little Serenade(Click to expand video player)
3m 34s
Little Serenade
A short, warm orchestral piece, with a graceful but quietly plaintive melody.
Ben Jonson was a man qualified to reflect on the meaning of life. His tactless candour had made success on the stage a bruising experience. He had thought long about faith, art, and the human condition, not least in a mercifully brief spell in Newgate awaiting execution. And now, in his later years, he suffered cruelly from illness, and had seen his wife and children predecease him.
It isIt is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make men better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant, and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.
For the Writer In You
Study Writers Who Respect Words
Find the writers who use words with respect and precision, and study their work; as for those who write as if they turned on a tap, try making something good out of their stuff.
