Ben Johnson Bibliography: Poet, Actor, And Literary Critic

Ben Johnson Bibliography
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Ben Johnson was born in the year 1572, in the month of June in the state of London. His father was a minister, but he later passed on few months after Ben was born. His mother was remarried by a bricklayer. Ben was raised in Westminster where he attended Westminster school and St. Martin school. After he completed school in 1589, he worked for a short time in his step father’s trade center as a brick layer. He later worked in the military before becoming an actor and playwright in the theater of Philip Henslowe’s company. He later married Anne Lewis in 1594 where he officially started working as an actor (Bjornson, 2013). His marriage life was kept discrete, and a few details like they had two children are known about his marriage.
In 1598 he wrote his first play that is commonly referred to as his great play which was called every man in his humor (Cao, 2013). The play sold very well, and Johnson began his famous life. However after the play was opened, Ben killed Spencer while they are in a duel which resulted from him to be charged with murder. He, however, did not face the trial for long because he was released few weeks after being charged because of his ability to read and write in Latin. He was given the benefit of the clergy but was later arrested for failing to pay an actor.
The king who in reign by then was King James who gave Johnson a royal favor and patronage which resulted in his release despite his crimes. Ben wrote many satirical plays over the next fifteen years which were produced in London theaters. The plays included the alchemist, the Volpone published in 1606 and 1610 respectively. It’s due to this plays that he was awarded a hundred marks of the year that are awarded to the best playwright and he was later given the title of England first poet laureate. Due to the production of great plays, a team of admirers and friends often referred to them to as the tribe of Ben met regularly where they can with ideas on how to make the name of Ben Johnson famous through selling his plays. Ben also had friends with famous writers such as Shakespeare, John Donne, and Francis.
Ben Johnson who was a play writer, poet, actor and literary critic is among the great poets and play writers in London that existed. In a brief history of his early life, we can say that Ben’s family originally came from the border of the Anglo and Scottish countries. Johnson’s family was guided by the coat of arms which consisted of three spindles. The first spindle was a diamond shaped heraldic machine which was shared with the border country. The other two spindles were referred to as the rhombi’s.
Since his father died two months before his birth, Johnson grew up not having a father figure in his life; his stepfather forced him to work in his trade center. But because of his strong passion for being a writer, actor, and poet he fought for his dream which he was able to achieve. His major mentor was Shakespeare who was also his greatest successor in English drama. Because of the strong interest, he had on acting, poems and plays he was able to follow the footsteps of the famous writers the likes of Shakespeare and John Donne closely. After the death of Shakespeare, he was made the poet laureate. He also had the advantage because he was King James I favorite who was in reign by then.
During his adolescent period, he had achieved quite some things. In 1597, Ben had fixed engagement with the admiral men who had a performance under Philips management. In this play, Johnson was declared that he was not a good actor and the company chooses him as the company writer but not the actor. During this period, he had already written original plays for the Admiral men. In the year 1598, Francis mentioned Ben Johnson as the best for tragedy. He later released a comedy which was referred to as the case is altered which is his earliest surviving play up to today.
In 1597, he wrote a play together Thomas Nashe where the committed a great offense because they wrote a play that was describing bad things about the current government. The play, Isle of dogs, resulted to Ben and Thomas being issued with arrest warrants from Queen Elizabeth. Jonson was jailed and charged with mutinous behavior while Nashe escaped. Johnson continued with his work even with the many trials and warrants of arrest from Queen Elizabeth (Garrido, 2014). He was able to produce many successful plays such as every man in his humor produced in 1548 and every man out of his humor in 1599. The reign of Queen Elizabeth did not favor the play and writers industry, and it was a sign of relief when her reign came to an end, and King James started his reign.
Johnson came from a family of Protestants. He learned that his ...