Jonson, Ben

JONSON, BEN. - Playwright and poet, a contemporary of Shakespeare, b. at Westminster in 1573 (probably on 11 June), d. in London on 6 Aug. 1637. He was the only one of the Elizabethans who observed the classical precepts on the unities. Unlike his great contemporary, he set a large part of his plots in the London of his time, although he imitated more directly than anyone else the models of the 16th-century Italian theatre of classical derivation.

He also assimilated that theory of the "humours," according to which the temperament of the eccentric individual and therefore of the cosmic type would be determined by the excess of one of the four humours that were said to constitute the essence of the human organism: hot, cold, moist, dry. In accordance with this theory he constructed a large part of the protagonists of his comedies, of which the best known are: Every man in his humour (performed in 1598 by a company of actors that included Shakespeare), Every man out of his humour (performed in 1599) and, among the more mature comedies, Volpone (1606), a bitter satire on avarice, set in Venice; The Alchemist (1611), Sejanus (1603) and Cataline (1611) are two tragedies of rigorously classical form and structure. J. was also an exquisite lyric poet, especially in his masks (choreographic spectacles performed at court and in the houses of noblemen).

Augusto Guidi