The Buckley School's founder, Reid Buckley, believed all speakers should hone their speaking skills by reading poetry out loud. Each month in our magazine, we keep that worthwhile practice alive by providing a poem for you to read aloud.
"I don't think there's any question that they were frenemies. There's reason to believe that Shakespeare's first occasion of going to the court of Elizabeth was an actor in Jonson's 'Every Man In His Humour.'"
– Washington University English professor Joe Loewenstein on the relationship between Jonson and Shakespeare
For many of us, the Elizabethan poet and playwright Ben Jonson is a writer we first learn about in our studies of William Shakespeare. Though Jonson was several years older than Shakespeare, their careers in the theater seem to have developed and flourished side by side.
How much did Jonson and Shakespeare work together or compete? It's hard to say. There are stories that the two engaged in "wit combats" at the Mermaid Tavern in London, though it's never been fully documented. Documents have shown, however, that Shakespeare acted in one of Jonson's plays.
Though Ben Jonson does not hold the same popular name recognition as William Shakespeare, Jonson has earned recognition as a major figure in the English Renaissance. And his life outside of his work was nearly as dramatic as a work you’d see on a stage.
Jonson's father died a month before he was born, and his family struggled to get by. William Camden, headmaster of Westminster School, provided the bright young boy with means for education. Though an excellent student, Jonson was forced to leave school and work with his stepfather as a bricklayer. As a young man, he fought as a volunteer in the Dutch war against Spain, returned to London and became an actor, wrote plays initially to make money, and was jailed twice—for sedition and for killing another actor in a duel.
Meanwhile, as a writer, Jonson was building a reputation as a literary craftsman. His plays were influenced by classical Greek and Latin works. Jonson was Poet Laureate and is also credited as the originator of English literary criticism.
Below, a poem from Jonson for you to read aloud. These lines provide a good way to practice your phrasing and pausing. Give it a try!
A Celebration Of Charis: I. His Excuse For Loving
by Ben Jonson
Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have, my peers;
Poets, though divine, are men,
Some have lov'd as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace;
Or the feature, or the youth.
But the language and the truth,
With the ardour and the passion,
Gives the lover weight and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First prepare you to be sorry
That you never knew till now
Either whom to love or how;
But be glad, as soon with me,
When you know that this is she
Of whose beauty it was sung;
She shall make the old man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay,
Till she be the reason why
All the world for love may die.
