Ben Jonson. Theory of humor. Ben Jonson’s comedies. Valpone. His influence on the English literature.

It is generally acknowledged that William Shakespeare had an enormous influence on the whole of world literature, but his younger contemporary, Ben Jonson had greater direct influence on English national literature than Shakespeare himself. Ben Jonson was born in London and started his education at Westminster School, which laid the foundation of his splendid erudition. In spite of the lack of any university education, he had in his prime the reputation of the most learned person of his time and received honorary degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge.

About 1595 he started his career as an actor and playwright and very soon became a dramatist of the first rank. Jonson was always in the thick of literary battles with his fellow-dramatists and as he grew older, he became literary dictator of London and gained the friendship of men like William Shakespeare and the great philosopher Francis Bacon.

If Shakespeare is unsurpassed in the genres of historial chronicle and tragedy, Ben Jonson is the author of the best English satirical comedies. His grotesquely comic manner of depicting characters typical of contemporary life influenced the whole of English literature.

Ben Jonson is known in English literature as the creator of humour comedies. Unlike Shakespeare, whose characters are many-sided and controversal, Ben Jonson underlines in his characters a dominating feature. Every character in his comedies has his own humour, his temper. The term “humour” appeared on the base of the existing ideas of human physiology. A human’s temper was determined as the consequence of liquids running in the human body. These liquids were called with Latin word “humor”. Hence, the dominating feature in a person’s character was called “humor”. As this feature was abnormal, it became the subject of laughter and had a negative meaning. Then the word humour was conceived as comic and meant not only “a temper’ but something funny too.

Jonson’s first successful comedy “Every Man in his Humour” was produced in 1598 at the “curtain theatre” in London. As it was the prevailing custom then, all dramatic characters had Italian names, and the action took place in Italy in unknown time. But Ben Jonson soon changed the names to English ones and transferred the action to London, and Londoners recognizing themselves.

Ben Jonson mocked at contemporary society and fearlessly protested against injustice.

“Every Man in his Humour” is the first comedy of manners of every day life. The characters are taken from life. In the prologue of this play the author claims to give:

“Deads and language, such as men do use:

And persons, such as comedy would choose, when she would show an image of the times,

And sport with human follies, not with crimes.”

From these words one can easily understand the character of Jonson’s comedy.

The plot of this masterpiece deals with tricks played upon the elder Knowell and the jealous Kitely, involving the exposure of various “humours”. And ending happily with the marriage of young Knowell and Kitely’s sister.

The success of “Every Man in his Humour” prompted “Every Man out of his humour”, produced in 1599 and printed in 1600. It is another comedy of humours, in which the author ridicules various absurd characters and fashions of the day. The purpose of this comedy is satirical and moral, which the author declares in the prologue very emphatically:

“I will scourge those apes

And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,

As large as in the stage, where on we act;

Where, they shall see the time’s deformity

Anatomized in every nerve and sinew

With constant courage and contempt of fear.”

Jonson is for removing all romantic elements from the plot and for rejecting the conventions of romantic comedy.

“Volpone, or the Fox”, is the greatest comedy of manners. It has been revived from time to time in various countries, including Bulgaria.

The main character is Volpone, a childess man, who for years pretends to be dying surrounded by his little court of scoundrels and moral perverts. Aided by his parasite Mosca, he tricks men, who, each in his degree, is the incarnation of extreme greed.

Volpone is a voluptuary who takes a devilish delight in corrupting people to commit all kinds of evil deeds. Madly jealous Corbino he encourages to prostitute his wife; from the avaricious Voltore and from all of them he wrings rich presents.

This comedy is the most powerful and the best in the tradition of the morality plays.