Death
Death—especially tragically premature death—was pervasive during the era in which Jonson lived and wrote. So much a daily part of existence was the potential for death that many simply accepted it as a part of existence and that existence was so hard that there was little time to put aside for too much emotional or intellectual contemplation of the passing of those around them. As in any age, that was a job left for the poets and Jonson proved himself one of the purest and most acutely aware writers of British Renaissance in large part through his perhaps surprisingly gentle and sensitive handling of death. Of course, that may stem from the fact that two of his most famous and moving works on the subject are lamentations on the passing of his young son and daughter. Jonson’s thematic obsession with death is not limited merely to emotional sublimation through writing to escape the heartbreak of losing offspring. “An Epitaph on S.P.” reaches to his career as a dramatist to lament also the passing of young male actor blessed with an uncanny gift for portraying older characters. Indeed, many of Jonson’s most beloved poems can be described as an epitaph marking the passing of a noted or consequential figure of the time.
Mythologizing the Divine Right of Kings
Jonson outlines his philosophy that poets have a duty to serve the state in “To King James” and, of course, it goes without saying that the state and King James were inseparable and indivisible. As such, a recurring theme running throughout much of Jonson’s poetry can essentially be described as contributing to the mythologizing of the divine right of King James to rule and lead. Jonson was a staunch defender of the King which doubtlessly contributed to James informally making Jonson England’s first poet laureate and granting him a pension as well. In return, Jonson’s thematic philosophy that poets have a debt to help sustain the monarchy and its authority in their writing was instrumental in fomenting the myth of the divine right of James to sit on the throne in glorious awe to be wondered at.
To Thine Own Self Be True
Shakespeare wrote those particular works, of course, but the sentiment rings as a recurring thematic motif through much of the verse produced by Jonson. His own particular version of the famous advice delivered by Polonius might be “Live to that point I will, for which I am a man / And dwell as in my centre as I can.” Jonson wrote across many genres and for many purposes, but he is always distinctively Ben Jonson. While a master of the masque, he eschewed putting on masks to hide his own certainty that he was divinely chosen to serve a purpose as well as the King. His prickly unpredictability allowed him to feel so disconnect between living possessing a belligerent personality and writing precisely controlled lyrical verse as sensitively as any of his peers. Nor was he bothered to write masques that robustly insisted on the value of finding social harmony while rejecting harmony when he saw fit. Jonson’s poetry is the verse of a self-assured master as at home with all the complications of his identity as any who writer who ever put pen to page. Few literary figures who have claimed to dwell in the centre have actually done so as aggressively as Ben Jonson.
Social Harmony
Among his other contributions to English literature, Ben Jonson also introduced the concept of the anti-masque into the long tradition of the masque. This device served to create an antithesis to primary thesis of the long work of verse known as the masque for the purpose of creating synthesis in the pursuit of the underlying theme united all his examples of this poetic genre: the essential importance of seeking and finding harmony in all manner of social discourse. His works “The Masque of the Queen” and “Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court” as well as others all serve this theme unifying even discordant political thoughts through a harmonious understanding despite the inescapable irony that Jonson’s own personality often seemed to expressly seek to obstruct harmony in his own social relationships. Indeed, one of the greatest bits of irony of the age is that Jonson’s collaborator on many of his masques—legendary architect Inigo Jones who was his stage designer for these verse productions—wound up as the two principles in one of the most infamous splits over artistic differences in the history of the English language.