Comment on the importance of Ben Jonson’s drama.

Comment on the importance of Ben Jonson’s drama.

Ben Jonson's importance in the history of English drama is mainly due to his envisagement of a new kind of comedy of which he gave excellent examples. He was a vigorous crusader for good sense and rectitude. From the very beginning of his dramatic career (the closing years of the sixteenth century) he undertook, what he thought, the reform of Elizabethan drama, and particularly comedy.

He appeared at a time when the University Wits such as Marlowe, Lyly, Greene, Kyd, and Nashe were establishing upon the stage what is called "romantic drama." To those like Ben Jonson who had any respect for classical drama and its canons, as also moderation, sanity, and the moral and intellectual well-being of man, the romantic comedies and histories offered much that was abominably absurd and lawless. He was critical of romantic extravagance and the egregious lack of realism as well as the general ignorance, or defiance, of the classical rules sanctified by the theories and practice of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Frequent changes of place, long duration of the time represented, absence of a unified plan or coherent structure, mingling of farce and tragedy, of clowns and kings, lack of definite aesthetic or ethical aims, and, in short an easy disregard of precision and discipline appeared to Jonson as indefensible errors. The themes treated were as objectionable as the treatment. The romantic plays told simply impossible stories and did not imitate life or nature. They dealt with idealised heroes, far-flung places, unbelievable adventures and vicissitudes, and flamboyant situations. The drama before Ben Jonson was romantic insofar as

(i)         it did not adhere to the theory and practice of the ancients and

(ii)        it did not attempt a representation of actuality.

Ben Jonson's reformation of drama meant, in fact, his correction of these twin romantic tendencies. He tried to establish, instead, a comic form and a tragic form based on the classical practice and to bring drama nearer life. In the field of tragedy he had no tangible success (he wrote only two tragedies), but in that of comedy he succeeded in making himself the greatest figure of his age.

Jonson's Classicism:

We will consider Jonson's achievement and contribution in the field of comedy with respect to his following three tendencies:

(i)         Classicism

(ii)        Realism

(iii)       Moralism

They are not so well defined, nor are they capable of being accurately differentiated from one another. But they are all in fundamental opposition to "romanticism.".....................

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