Retropost, 2012:
Retropost, 2012:
The Arbor, película
dirigida por Clio Barnard, es una mezcla de documental y drama sobre la
escritora barriobajera Andrea Dunbar, de Bradford, muerta a los 29 tras
una vida desestructurada—y las secuelas en su familia 20 años después
de su breve éxito. Tiene excelentes críticas pero el conjunto es más
bien deprimente de ver, y vidas tan desorganizadas, planas,
desestructuradas y prosaicas no dan ni siquiera para un drama
soportable. Ni siquiera entra mucho la película en la vaciedad del
mundillo literario que hizo un éxito de las tranches de vie de Andrea Dunbar. Estos ambientes mejor no verlos ni en teatro ni en pelícuula. En The Village Voice la ponen mejor:
An exemplar of fact-fiction hybrid filmmaking, Clio Barnard's debut feature traces the life of British playwright Andrea Dunbar (1961–1990), whose work chronicled her grim existence in the West Yorkshire housing project where she grew up, and the fallout of her notoriety, horrible choices in men, and alcoholism for her family, particularly her oldest daughter, Lorraine. Barnard seamlessly blends archival material and a live staging of Dunbar's play of the title on the writer's home turf. But her boldest intervention in the bio-doc is having actors lip-synch the words of the actual interviewees—a deliberate distancing device that nonetheless draws viewers in closer.Muy saltable, la llamo yo, mejor que a must-see. Los acentos de Bradford, lo mejor, pero ojo que es Inglaterra profunda, deepest heart of greyness.
Retropost, 2012:
Director: Woody Allen
Interpretes: Ellen Page, Woody Allen, Jesse Eisenberg, Judy Davis, Penélope Cruz
Resumen según RedAragón:
Después de tres películas rodadas en Inglaterra (Match point, Scoop y El sueño de Cassandra) y su aventura barcelonesa (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), todo parecía indicar que Woody Allen daba por terminado su periplo europeo y volvía a su querida geografía neoyorquina (Si la cosa funciona y Conocerás al hombre de tus sueños). Pero nada más lejos de la realidad. Después de evocar distintas épocas del París más bohemio y artístico en la fantasía Midnight in Paris,
el director norteamericano acude a la llamada de la ciudad eterna para
rodar en sus plazas, calles y callejuelas A Roma con amor, otra mezcla
de comedia típicamente alleniana y fantasía construida a partir de
cuatro historias independientes que acontecen en la misma ciudad, al
mismo tiempo. De nuevo un reparto poderoso, variado, cosmopolita, en el
que no falta el propio Allen (en el papel de un cazatalentos musical
que tiene que lidiar con un magnífico pero tímido tenor que solo sabe
cantar bien en la ducha, lo que da pie a uno de los gags más
surrealistas de toda su filmografía), y al que le siguen Alec Baldwin
como una especie de oráculo, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Judy Davis,
Roberto Benigni y Penélope Cruz en su segundo trabajo con el director.
Si Penélope es una prostituta romana, talentosa en el contacto físico y
disparatada en el chascarrillo antiburgués, Benigni encarna a uno de
los más extraños personajes de toda la obra de Allen. Se trata de un
oficinista de clase media, anónimo y poco atractivo, que sin razón
alguna se convierte en personaje mediático, asediado por prensa y
público. Allen ya trató el tema de la fama en Celebrity, su película en blanco y negro de 1998, pero aquí lo convierte en desconcertante espectáculo libre de todo prejuicio narrativo.
Crítica de Nando Salvá (El Periódico):
La última parada en
el tour turístico de Woody Allen por algunas de las ciudades más
fotogénicas de Europa tiene un aspecto herméticamente bonito –sus
escenas están llenas de sol, de encantadoras piazzas y cafeterías, de
calles de piedra abrazadas por la brisa–, una banda sonora llena de
machacones clásicos del pop italiano y una colección de diálogos que
nos aseguran de forma repetida y redundante que Roma es "hermosa".
Asimismo, las cuatro inconexas historias que componen la película
parecen por momentos rendir tributo a clásicos del cine italiano como
De Sica y Fellini, pero de una forma que se percibe anémica y
subdesarrollada. Algunas de ellas simplemente no tienen espacio para
crecer, y las otras son meros chistes no especialmente inspirados y
estirados a base de verborrea suministrada por personajes
unidimensionales que afrontan situaciones pobremente diseñadas.
Contemplando A Roma con amor, uno está tentado de suponer que Allen la
concibió después de hacer limpieza en el cajón de las ideas: escogió un
puñado de ellas que no le parecían del todo mal y, incapaz de decidirse
por una, resolvió usarlas juntas. O que, simplemente, la escribió en la
parte trasera de un mantel de papel en una pizzería del Trastevere,
justo antes de un helado y una siesta. Y es difícil evitar la sensación
de que la insistencia de Allen por producir una película al año
conlleva cierto desprecio por el cine. No todos los directores tienen
por qué tratar de emular el perfeccionismo de Kubrick pero, ¿es que no
hay un término medio?
Y aquí la de Luis Martínez en El Mundo.
________
Hay que decir que si no es ninguna obra maestra la
película, como homenaje desenfadado a Roma sí funciona bastante bien.
Es entretenida de sonrisa, sin llegar a divertir realmente, en parte
debido a la deslavazada estructura narrativa de historias alternadas
pero inconexas. Se refuerzan mínimamente en lo temático: en cada una la
situación incial, estable, se ve comprometida por la tentación del
exceso o el desenfrento—el joven arquitecto que se enamora de Monica,
la amiga que viene a visitar a su mujer ("hasta su nombre es sexy"), el
empresario de pompas fúnebres que canta Pagliacci
en la ducha, y triunfa brevemente en escena con ducha y todo—lo mejor
es el momento de los asesinatos desde la ducha—; la pareja de
provincias que se desorienta en Roma y cometen adulterio con prostituta
y criminal; y el oficinista que se vuelve famoso por unos días, una
fama gratuita que lo abandona tan pronto como le llegó. Los personajes
están a merced del deseo o de la suerte que los saque de su rutina—pero
luego el empresario vuelve a sus pompas fúnebres, Woody Allen fracasa
como montador de óperas vanguardistas, a Monica le dan un papel en
Japón o en Hawaii y no se lo piensa dos veces en dejar a su amante
recién encontrado, sin darle tiempo siquiera a romper su pareja... (Es
patético ver a estos personajes desde fuera dejándose llevar por el
deseo o el impulso a la infidelidad, revelando una sustancia moral de
lo más endeble.... pero así somos, al parecer, vistos desde Woody). Por
cierto, en el personaje de Monica, una pulla malintencionada a Mia
Farrow: actriz desequilibrada, falsa intelectual, dramatizándose a sí
misma, haciendo al mundo girar en torno a sus emociones... "si vives un
año con ella acabarás adoptando huérfanos vietnamitas". El affair éste
del arquitecto está contemplado por otro arquitecto norteamericano,
sesentón, que ya vivió todo esto hace tiempo, y hace apariciones
narratoriales o fantasmales, un tanto desconcertantes narrativamente,
al lado de su joven colega al que aconseja: "¡Peligro! ¡Peligro a la
vista!"—sin que los consejos sirvan de nada. Es como Woody
aconsejándose a sí mismo, joven o viejo, tanto da, no maduramos. En
cuanto a la fama, es aquí más absurda que nunca por su gratuidad
absoluta, sólo el ojo de los medios y la nube de paparazzi corriendo de
un lado a otro y magnificando las naderías que encuentran; el personaje
de Begnini se queda entre aliviado de volver a su rutina y desconsolado
por no ser ya nadie, y no tener las mujeres que tenía... El lado
repugnante de los famosos aparece más bien en el actorzucho con el que
se ilusiona la pueblerina que se ha perdido por Roma, y que ya perdida
se deja seducir por quien pase, primero por este patético personaje que
para más inri se me parece bastante, y luego por un apuesto
criminalillo que los atraca a los dos en su hotel. En fin, una serie de
sketches dignos de la comedia de la Restauración, y que no dicen mucho
de la coherencia moral de la humanidad—que al parecer depende más de la
rutina que de la auténtica fuerza del convencimiento de los afectos y
de las relaciones personales. Roma es amor
al revés, por eso funciona bien el título en español; ahora que vete a
saber qué quiere decir el juego de palabras—echa un aroma sospechoso de
autoironía y de frustración, más que de sentimentalismo.
Retropost, 2012
(From Margaret Drabble's Oxford Companion to English Literature):
Ben[jamin] Jonson (1572-1637).
Dramatist, poet, scholar, and writer of court masques. He was of Border
descent, but was born in or near London, the posthumous son of a
clergyman. He was educated at Westminster School under Camden. During
the early 1590s he worked as a bricklayer in his stepfather's employ,
saw military service in Flanders, where he killed an enemy champion in
single combat, and joined a strolling company of players for whom he
acted the part of Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy,
a play for which he wrote additional scenes in 1601-2. In 1597 he began
to work for Henslowe's companies as a player and playwright, and was
imprisoned for his share in The Isle of Dogs, a satire now lost 'containing very seditious and slandrous matter' (See Swan Theatre).
In 1598 he killed a fellow actor in a duel, but escaped hanging by
pleading benefit of clergy, being branded instead as a felon. He became
a Roman Catholic during his imprisonment, but returned to Anglicanism
15 years later. His first important play, Every Man in His Humour, with Shakespeare in the cast, was performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Company at the Curtain in 1598, and Every Man Out of His Humour at the Globe in 1599. Cynthia's Revels (1600) and Poetaster (1600-1, attacking Dekker and Marston) were performed by the Children of the Queen's Chapel. His first extant tragedy, Sejanus, was given at the Globe by Shakespeare's company, 1603; his first court masque, The Masque of Blackness,
written to accomodate Queen Anne's desire to appear a a Negress, was
given on Twelfth Night, 1605. In that year he was imprisoned and in
danger of having his nose and ears slit, for his share in Eastward Hoe,
and gave evidence to the Privy Council concerning the Gunpowder Plot.
Then followed the period of his major plays: Volpone, acted at both the
Globe and the two universities, 1605-6, Epicene, or The Silent Woman, 1609-10; The Alchemist, 1610; and Bartholomew Fair
(1614). In 1612-13 he was in France as tutor to Ralegh's son, and in
1618-19 journeyed on foot to Scotland, where he stayed with Drummond of
Hawthornden, who recorded their conversation.
Though not formally appointed the first poet laureate, the essentials
of the position were conferred on Jonson in 1616, when a pension was
granted to him by James I. In the same year he published a folio
edition of his Works, which
raised the drama to a new level of literary respectability, received an
honorary MA from the Oxford University, and about this date became
lecturer in rhetoric at Gresham College in London. He was elected
chronologer of London in 1628. After The Devil Is an Ass (1616), he abandoned the public stage for ten years, and his later plays, The Magnetic Lady (1631) and A Tale of a Tub
(1633), show a relatively unsuccessful reliance on allegory and
symbolism. Dryden called them his 'dotages'. From 1605 onwards Jonson
was constantly producing masques for the court, with scenery by Inigo
Jones. This form of entertainment reached its highest elaboration in
Jonson's hands. He introduced into it the 'antimasque', an
antithetical, usually disorderly, prelude to the main action which
served to highlight by contrast the central theme of political and
social harmony. There are examples of this in The Masque of Queens
(1609), Love Restored (1612), Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at
Court (1616), Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618, which gave Milton
his idea for Comus), and Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion (1624). After Chloridia
(1631), his collaboration with Jones ended in a famous quarrel, which
Jonson treated in several vituperative poems, concerning the relative
priority of verbal and thematic content and spectacle. His last masques
were produced in 1633-4. His non-dramatic verse includes Epigrammes and The Forest,
printed in the Folio of 1616: notable among his epigrams are two tender
and moving epitaphs, Nos. xxii and xlv, 'On My First Daughter' (c.
1595) and 'On His First Sonne' (1603) ('Farewell, thou child of my
right hand, and joy'). The Underwood and a translation of Horace's Ars Poetica were printed in 1640. His chief prose works are The English Grammar and Timber, or Discoveries, printed in 1640.
During the reign of James I Jonson's literary prestige and influence
were unrivalled. He presided over a literary circle which met at the
Mermaid Tavern, and later in the Apollo Room of the Devil and St
Dunstan Tavern, where his leges conviviales
or 'social rules' were inscribed over the mantlepiece. His friends
included Shakespeare, whom he loved 'on this side idolatry', Donne, F.
Bacon, George Chapman, Beaumont, Fletcher, Cotton, and Selden, and
among the younger writers (who styled themselves the 'sons' or 'tribe
of Ben' R. Brome, Carew, Cartwright, Sir K. Digby, Lord Falkland,
Herrick, Nabbes, Randolph, and Suckling. His chief patrons were the
Sidney family, the earl of Pembroke, the countess of Bedford, and the
duke and duchess of Newcastle. Jonson suffered a stroke in 1628, after
which he was perhaps permanently bedridden until his death in August
1637. He was buried in Westminster Abbey under a tombstone bearing the
inscription 'O rare Ben Jonson', and celebrated in a collection of
elegies entitled Jonsonus Virbius (1638).
As a man Jonson was arrogant and quarrelsome, but fearless,
warm-hearted, and intellectually honest. His reputation declined
sharply from about 1700, as Shakespeare's, with whom he was inevitably
compared, increased, but in this century it has revived, thanks partly
to the comprehensive edition of C. H. Herford and P. and E. Simpson (11
vols, 1925-52), vols. i and ii of which contain the standard biography.
________
Felix E. Schelling, Introduction to Every Man Out of His Humour— a longer introduction to Ben Jonson's life and literary career:
THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first
literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose,
satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time
affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben
Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to
us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.
Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to
the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of
Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England.
Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast
into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a
month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and
child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the
time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years
Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born.
But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His
mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was
for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the
attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at
Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations
of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in
veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,
"All that I am in arts, all that I know;"
and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His
Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either
university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted
into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no
degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by
their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as
a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of
William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and
raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly
bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden,
Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the
face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia
from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to
the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the
arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's
reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his
prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave,
combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.
In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he
married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare.
He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest";
for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord
Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On
my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the
poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of
the plague; another son grew up to manhood [and] little credit to his
father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's
domestic life.
How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the
theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his
tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the
popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death
the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself.
Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the
exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law
of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's
Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed
down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's
men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying
back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is
not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same
year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed
the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the
company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in
collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger
Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of
some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon
mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it
appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and
that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one
time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish
Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy
circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres —
well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with
the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his
mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title — accords
to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of
some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date
has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however,
is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies,
now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth,"
"King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of
these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August
1599 to June 1602.
Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for
a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn,
dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one
of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer],
for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson,
bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson
in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual
continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to
remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious
fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar
squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among
gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace
on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson
described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly
arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to
prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It
is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law
permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit
of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The
circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he
received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left
thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he
returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later.
On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former
associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to
Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which
Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long
standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law,
narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in
His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the
company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play
himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or
not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by
Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with
Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in
the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's
works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's
name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well
first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that
particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was
generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in
the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of
characters.
"Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it
Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time
was established once and for all. This could have been by no means
Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was
already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of
Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never
claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded
"Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be
described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It
combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the
"Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the
beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the
classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had
already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so
fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other
respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save
for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio
Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least
characteristic of the comedies of Jonson.
"Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer
of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making
play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells
little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to
follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his
life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this
comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are
conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and
he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with
them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and
Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when
we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time
definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English
poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed
in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent
ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed
that there was a professional way of doing things which might be
reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these
examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our
attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and
haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do
something different; and the first and most striking thing that he
evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours.
As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote
his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a
bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which
"Some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way."
But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather,
The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff,
A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot
On his French garters, should affect a humour!
O, it is more than most ridiculous."
Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage
personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable
simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and,
placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict
and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name
indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the
braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a
coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end
of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself.
But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of
"Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each
character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on
observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was
neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that
he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to
a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the
laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the
unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then,
but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate
and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be
tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few,
who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His
Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of
his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems
to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before
Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a
heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life,
viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent
species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy
merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in
which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's
Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the
rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor,"
all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains,
Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially
later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for
an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his
successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is,
degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of
manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play
called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous
Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The
Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His
Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies
in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." "We such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad,
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."
But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles,
though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet
returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The
Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale
of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy.
None of these plays met with any marked success, although the
scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's
dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an
office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news
(wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for
satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although
as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her
bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile
them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours
Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to
caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more
than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon,
especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears
unworthily to have used his influence at court against the
broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was
bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as
Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not
fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even
commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court;
and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and
devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be
"sealed of the tribe of Ben."
Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601;
The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609;
Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600;
Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601;
Poetaster, 4to, 1602;
Sejanus, 4to, 1605;
Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605;
Volpone, 4to, 1607;
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616;
The Alchemist, 4to, 1612;
Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611;
Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631;
The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631;
The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631;
The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692;
The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640;
A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640;
The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641;
Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.
To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo,
and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and
in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41);
fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729;
edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756;
by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846;
re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871;
in 9 volumes., 1875;
by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838;
by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by
C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.;
Nine Plays, 1904;
ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc;
Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal
Library), 1885;
Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905;
Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907;
Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890.
J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay,
(Canterbury Poets), 1886;
Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895;
Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901;
Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905;
Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books,
No. 4, 1906;
Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known
setting, Eragny Press, 1906.
See Memoirs affixed to Works;
J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886;
Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden;
Shakespeare Society, 1842;
ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906;
Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.
