Convention and Contravention in Ben Jonson’s Three Comedies

Abstract Of all English Renaissance dramatists Ben Jonson was the one who most fell afoul of authorities, came within a heartbeat of becoming Master of the Revels, a post that would have acquired him to regulate and censor the works of his fellow dramatists,¹ as Henry David Thoreau refers to him in Walden: “When other birds are still the screech owls take up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is truly Ben Jonsonian.” Thoreau compares the owl to Ben Jonson who was born in London in 1572. He was a posthumous son of a poor man and a stepson of a bricklayer. His childhood years were spent in poor economic conditions. Due to the financial support of his unknown benefactor, he was educated at Westminster School, but he did not or could not continue his education at Oxford or Cambridge. Instead, he worked as an apprentice in his stepfather’s job. He decided that he could not endure it, and his interest and future were molded into a life filled with theater. During his years fully occupied with theater, he was imprisoned a few times because of the tone he employed in his writings and owing to some fights during which he wounded and murdered actors and poets like Edmund Spencer. He played the leading role in Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy, a success that excelled his misbehavior and saved his fame. His plays created tremendous impression over the audience and King James I. The King favored him, and asked Jonson write plays and masques for the royal household; he also appointed him as Poet Laureate². Moreover, in some of his plays, like Every Man Out of Humour (1599) Jonson criticized his contemporaries and satirized John Marston’s diction. In his plays, he problematizes religious subjects. During the imprisonment of Jonson when he was accused of killing Spencer, he converted to Catholicism but gave up being a Catholic around 1610, the year he wrote The Alchemist. His relationship with Charles I was not as good as with James I, but he kept writing till his last four years before death, and the last years were not devoted to writing plays but writing poetry and reading. He died in 1637. Sons of Ben, a literary group consisting of his followers, continued his understanding of poetry and poetic style.