Wednesday 19 January 2011

Biographical Detail 1 - Ben Jonson

Post one, interesting biographical detail about Ben Johnson.

You must check that you are not repeating something that has already been posted.

Go!

17 comments:

  1. Browning was born in Camberwell, a suburb of London, England.

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  2. His eldest daughter Mary died in November 1593, when she was 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.

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  3. He had the honor of being buried in Westminster Abbey due to him being one of the most accomplished writers of his time.

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  4. He was very famous for his satirical work, for example one play called "The Alchemist" which was based on the paranormal and the arcane, the play satirizing human follies and vices, such as greed and it's consequences.

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  5. After his return from Scotland (1618-1619), Jonson received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University and lectured on rhetoric at Gresham College, London.

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  6. Ben Jonson's father died a month before his birth.

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  7. His father was a bricklayer also.

    In 1598 Jonson was tried for killing another actor in a duel but escaped execution by claiming right of clergy (that he could read and write).

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  8. Many people thought that English literature, and particularly drama, had already reached as high as it could when Ben Jonson began his career. But Jonson helped it gain even higher goals. Jonson's special gift was his strong sense of artistic form and control. Although an accomplished scholar, he could also write in the way everyday people spoke. It was because of this skill that he was liked by both people who were well read and by people who did not have an advanced education.

    Jonson's first major play was Every Man in His Humour. It was performed by a theater group called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. William Shakespeare performed the lead role.

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  9. Jonson was once thought to have gone on to the University of Cambridge, but johnson himself contradicts this saying that he did not go to university, but was put to a trade(probably brick laying).

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  10. he joined the army, serving in Flanders. He returned to England about 1592 and married Anne Lewis on November 14, 1594.

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  11. In 1598 he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy."

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  12. In 1597, Ben produced a play which was later supressed after causing great offence.

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  13. In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about £60), 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.

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  14. Jonson killed a fellow actor in a duel, and, though he escaped capital punishment by pleading “benefit of clergy” (the ability to read from the Latin Bible),

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  15. he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his bet

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  16. 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

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