#ben jonson

[mushroomslovesyou]

happy early Valentine's day. I have no excuse.

+ bonus:

#mine #valentines #william shakespeare #christopher marlowe #ben jonson #kit marlowe #early modern theater #i made these instead of finishing my already overdue work #help

[shakespearenews]

Among playwrights, Shakespeare was an anomaly: all of his contemporaries had either matriculated at Cambridge or Oxford or, like Kyd and Jonson himself, had the private education that was a close equivalent. In a verse letter addressed to Jonson, Francis Beaumont, an Oxford matriculant as well as Jonson’s pupil, feigning untutored modesty, likens his style first to that of a Devon cheese-maker and then to Shakespeare’s: 

heere, I would lett slip (If I had any in me) schollershipp, And from all learninge leave these lines as cleare  As Shakespeares best are. 

In this jibe, even Shakespeare’s best lines lack scholarship.

Shakespeare may himself have made a joke of his unlearning. Both As You Like It and Merry Wives of Windsor feature an academically challenged character who is repeatedly called William. In the former, the stock country bumpkin is mocked by the court fool: to Touchstone’s question “Is thy name William?” he replies “William, sir”; and to Touchstone’s rhetorical follow-up, “Art thou learned?” he answers an earnest, “No, sir.” In Merry Wives of Windsor, an entire scene focuses on an underperforming schoolboy who bungles through his Latin declensions as his exasperated school master calls him to attention 10 times by name.

#shakespeare #william shakespeare #francis beaumont #ben jonson #as you like it #merry wives #the merry wives of windsor #william #learning #teaching #education #oup #oup blog

[kurja-tales]

Song: to Celia [“Drink to me only with thine eyes”] BY Ben Jonson

#love poem #literature aesthetics #ben jonson #dark academic aesthetic #light acadamia aesthetic #cottagecore

[garland-on-thy-brow]

I am sure they are having a great time.

#catiline his conspiracy #ben jonson #articles/books

[sivavakkiyar]

Ben Jonson

#Ben Jonson #poetry #there’s probably some contextual meaning I’m missing but I fuck with it

[mooncustafer]

Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: Shakespeare RPF | Elizabethan & Jacobean Theater RPF, 16th Century CE RPF, 17th Century CE RPF Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Ben Jonson & William Shakespeare Characters: William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson Additional Tags: Friendship, Theatre, Poetry Summary:

Will Shakespeare doesn't usually like other poets. Ben Jonson doesn't usually like people. One way or another, through the years, they make it work.

#fanfiction reccomendations #this is smart funny and adorable #ben jonson #william shakespeare #bird allegory #(you'll understand when you read it)

[ma-pi-ma]

Bevimi solo con gli occhi e io risponderò con i miei; o lascia un bacio nella coppa e non cercherò il vino. La sete che sale dall'anima esige una bevanda divina ma anche se io bevessi il nettare di Giove non lo scambierei con il tuo.

Ti ho mandato un serto di rose, non solo per onorarti ma con la speranza che al tuo fianco non potessero appassire. Hai respirato appena su di esse e me le hai restituite. Da allora crescono e profumano, giuro! non di se stesse ma di te.

Ben Jonson, A Celia, da La foresta, 1616

#ben jonson

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 28 March 2024

Ben Jonson. 1573-1637

A Farewell to the World

FALSE world, good night! since thou hast brought   That hour upon my morn of age; Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,   My part is ended on thy stage.

Yes, threaten, do. Alas! I fear   As little as I hope from thee: I know thou canst not show nor bear   More hatred than thou hast to me.

My tender, first, and simple years   Thou didst abuse and then betray; Since stir'd'st up jealousies and fears,   When all the causes were away.

Then in a soil hast planted me   Where breathe the basest of thy fools; Where envious arts professed be,   And pride and ignorance the schools;

Where nothing is examined, weigh'd,   But as 'tis rumour'd, so believed; Where every freedom is betray'd,   And every goodness tax'd or grieved.

But what we're born for, we must bear:   Our frail condition it is such That what to all may happen here,   If 't chance to me, I must not grutch.

Else I my state should much mistake   To harbour a divided thought From all my kind—that, for my sake,   There should a miracle be wrought.

No, I do know that I was born   To age, misfortune, sickness, grief: But I will bear these with that scorn   As shall not need thy false relief.

Nor for my peace will I go far,   As wanderers do, that still do roam; But make my strengths, such as they are,   Here in my bosom, and at home.

#poetry #poem of the day #poem #ben jonson

[friedmomosposts]

"Drink to me only with thine eyes"

Love is even more intoxicating than wine.

#love #literature #quotes #desi blr #ben jonson #song to celia

[enjoymorestuff]

Shout-out to whoever wrote in this copy of Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour before it got digitized and put on archive.org for me to read.

#ben jonson #every man in his humour #bill and ted

[garlicandcheeseinawindmill]

ben jonson was such a snob bc he had a university education and Shmakespeare didn't, but the first line of The Alchemist is I FART AT THEE so. yeah idk about that.

#shakespeare #ben jonson #the alchemist #classic lit memes

[cto10121]

…Yeah, this really needs its own post. You’re in for a wild ride, @pisces-hideout.

So yes, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were total frenemies and their Goku-Vegeta dynamic is as good as historical fact. And it is absolutely glorious.

So Ben Jonson was eight years younger than Shakespeare, a bricklayer-turned-soldier who came into playacting/writing around the late 1590s (seriously, what’s with all the most important people in Shakespeare’s life being 8 years apart from him in age?). Shakespeare and Jonson first met (per Shakespeare’s first biographer Nicholas Rowe) when Jonson submitted his first play, Every Man In His Humour, to Shakespeare’s troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The LCM disliked the play and were ready to refuse it—except Shakespeare, who gave it a quick look and persuaded his troupe to perform it. After that they became friends and even drinking buddies…but that didn’t stop Jonson from giving Shakespeare hell, though.

Because from the get-go Jonson was the complete opposite of Shakespeare in every way. Arrogant, irascible, macho, scholarly, and opinionated, he 1) was a consummate artiste who wrote super slowly and 2) fought with and made enemies of other play poets, wrote plays, poetry, social and lit criticism, and pretty much doing everything under the sun. He was also very political and spoke truth to power; a controversial play he co-wrote with Tom Nashe literally got him arrested and thrown in the Tower (where he famously converted to Catholicism). While a lot of his plays were commercial failures, he was renowned for his literary work and got an intense following by other pretentious fans called the Tribe of Ben—and of course his satiric social comedies were all the rage in the 1600s.

Oh, and he also killed people. In war, yeah, but also one guy in a duel. Gabriel Spenser, a fellow actor. Got his thumb branded for it. Yeah.

And yes, homeboy ragged on Shakespeare. He straight up told his buddy that Shakespeare “wanted [lacked] art.” He criticized him for his awful geography, particularly giving Ilyria (Czechoslovakia) a coastline. And when Shakespeare’s fellow actors gushed about how Shakespeare was such a genius that he never blotted a single line, Jonson tartly replied, “Would he had blotted a thousand!”

He also had this to say about Shakespeare:

In the end he was a tsundere a softie. After Shakespeare’s death, he wrote an especially great dedicatory poem (“To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr William Shakespeare”) for Shakespeare’s First Folio, famously calling him “Sweet Swan of Avon!” With regards to his family, he was a total yandere; he called his wife “a shrew, but honest” and wrote the most touching tribute to his son Ben when he died.

Shakespeare, meanwhile, wrote fast and effortlessly (per the actors), had a good reputation, did not involve himself in ~theater drama, did not court followers, was consistently successful…and by all accounts trolled Jonson superbly. Check it out:

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

#🤣 #william shakespeare #ben jonson #cristina is silly #life of will #help i can’t stop grinning #there are definite shades of mozart-salieri as well #i 100% believe that ben jonson had angst over not being good enough #and here is shakespeare by all accounts having a blast #dragon ball z #gifs #did i neglect to mention that ben jonson was poet laurate of england #yep #ben jonson: i am the prince of all poets!!!! #ben jonson was a real life tsundere #still better than shakespeare/marlowe

[shakespearenews]

Dr Darren Freebury-Jones, a lecturer in Shakespeare studies at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, has discovered “striking similarities” between phrases recited by Thorello in Every Man in His Humour and those in Shakespeare’s Othello, Hamlet and Twelfth Night – all written between 1600 and 1603.

He told the Guardian: “What I’ve found are some really interesting connections in terms of language, which suggest that Shakespeare was, perhaps unconsciously, remembering his own lines.”

#shakespeare #william shakespeare #actors #acting #memorization #ben jonson #every man in his humour #every man in his humor #othello #hamlet #twelfth night

[sabasposts]

"Mischiefs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed"

#volpone #ben jonson #love #memories #life #spilled thoughts #friends #heart #english literature #quotes #drama #play #life lessons

[garland-on-thy-brow]

Very much need a production of Catiline his conspiracy that plays "my fine dainty speaker" as gay as it should. And the Catiline/Cethegus dynamics.

#catiline his conspiracy #ben jonson #my fine dainty speaker

[sivavakkiyar]

Ben Jonson

#Ben Jonson #poetry