Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.
Read more about Ben Jonson: Relationship With Shakespeare, Reception and Influence, Biographies of Ben Jonson
Famous quotes by ben jonson:
“For I loved the man and do honour his memory, on this side of idolatry, as much as any.”
—Ben Jonson (1573–1637)
“Follow a shaddow, it still flies you;
Seeme to flye it, it will pursue:
So court a mistris, shee denyes you;
Let her alone, shee will court you.
Say, are not women truely, then,
Stil’d but the shaddowes of us men?
At morne, and even, shades are longest;
At noone, they are or short, or none:
So men at weakest, they are strongest,
But grant us perfect, they’re not knowne.
Say, are not women truely, then,
Stil’d but the shaddowes of us men?”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“‘Tis no sin love’s fruit to steal;
But the sweet theft to reveal,
To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“Come leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age,
Where pride and impudence in faction knit
Usurp the chair of wit:
Indicting and arraigning every day,
Something they call a play.
Let their fastidious, vain
Commission of the brain,
Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn:
They were not made for thee, less thou for them.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“Blueness doth express trueness.”
—Ben Jonson (1573–1637)