Welcome back, gentle listeners, to season 2 and the long-awaited discussion of Ben Jonson! Shakespeare’s colleague, friend, maybe sometimes frenemy, it’s up to us to decide. But definitely someone who knew him and admired (perhaps somewhat begrudgingly) his work.
After diving into the world of biography and various survey and companion type books, I now have a more complete picture of Ben Jonson the guy, and am delighted to inform everything that there is the same amount of nerdy minutia to dive into as there for Shakespeare.
In this episode, we’ll talk about Ben Jonson’s life, what we know about him and why we know it, what we don’t know about him, and how we can look at him in relation to Shakespeare. Having more context on the time and people is always a helpful exercise when you want to understand history better and might I suggest that we stop writing Shakespeare biographies and maybe start reading about his fellow playwrights too?
Next time, I’ll be looking at Jonson’s works, his relationship to the theater, why he kept getting in trouble with the censors, and how he’s the same (or not) as Shakespeare.
It’s good to be back, friends!
Further Reading
Ben Jonson: A Life by Ian Donaldson
Credit where credit is due
Podcast art by Halie Branson
Music recording by josdvg