Volume 31, Number 20 · December 20, 1984
The Alchemist Dramatist
By Harry Levin
Ben Jonson, dramatist
by Anne Barton
Cambridge University Press, 370 pp., $17.95 (paper)
The circumstance of having been preceded by Shakespeare was an inhibition, at least as much as an inspiration, to writers who came afterward, as some of them—like Goethe—have acknowledged. The situation must have been even more daunting for Ben Jonson, since he happened to be the most ambitious, articulate, strong-minded, and arguably the most talented, among Shakespeare's immediate contemporaries. They cannot quite spontaneously have conceded Shakespeare's hegemony, though Jonson finally did in a generous eulogy. To chart the rivalry of the two in other terms than Jonson's is to come up against Shakespeare's personal elusiveness. 'Gentle' is the one adjective we can extract from firsthand witnesses; and that sets up another opposition with Jonson's aggressiveness.
Review, 3058 words
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