Ben Jonson

Biography

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was an English playwright, poet, and literary critic who was the most important dramatist of the Jacobean era after Shakespeare. Born in London, Jonson killed a fellow actor in a duel, was imprisoned, converted to Catholicism, and eventually became the unofficial poet laureate of England. His major comedies—Volpone (1606), The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614)—are masterpieces of satirical wit. Unlike Shakespeare's romantic comedies, Jonson's plays are sharp social satires rooted in classical models, exposing human greed, gullibility, and pretension. He was also a brilliant lyric poet and the center of a literary circle known as the Tribe of Ben.