Among the outcomes of this visit were Drummond’s handwritten
notes on Jonson’s conversation, generally referred to as Ben Jonson's
Conversations. It has probably become more a classic than any poem
or play his guest would ever write. Ben Jonson was a colorful and opinionated gossip.
The literati of London were most often his subjects.
Being naturally censorious, his comments on his fellow poets
(many then dead) inform us that:
Sidney did not keep a decorum in making every one speak as
well as himself.
Spenser's stanzaes pleased him not, nor his matter, the meaning
of which Allegorie he had delivered in papers to Sir Walter Raughlie.
Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no children; but no
poet.
That Michael Drayton's Polyolbion, if [he] had performed what
he promised to writte (the deeds of all the Worthies) had been excellent: His
long verses pleased him not.[1]
Mostly he spoke of his feud with the playwright John Marston who he felt had insulted him in his play Jack Drum's Entertainment. He spoke of taking his revenge through the character of Crispinus in his own play The Poetaster.
The only two comments from Jonson concerning Shakespeare — or at
least that Drummond thought worthy of recording — from the entire visit were
That Shakspeer wanted arte[2].
and
Sheakspear, in a play, brought in a number of men saying they
had suffered shipwrack in Bohemia, wher ther is no sea neer by some 100 miles.[3]
No mention was made of a Shakespeare folio in the planning
stages or otherwise.
The young Drummond was aware of Shakespeare’s works but
seems to have been pleased to let Jonson do most of the talking. The
conversation just didn’t go much in that direction.
Jonson did not include any comment on Shakespeare in his earlier
gossipy book of Epigrams either. The epigram “On Poet Ape” has long been
assigned to him, it is true, but it is a near certainty that it was addressed
to Philip Henslowe. Jonson had published his own folio of his collected plays
in 1616, the same year the epigrams first appeared, notably without the plays
he sold to Henslowe early in his career. The epigram was surely a bit of
revenge upon Henslowe for having demanded too high a price for returning the publishing rights. Or perhaps
refusing altogether.
Jonson’s other favorite subject was his close connections
with the English nobility. We learn from the Conversations that “Every
first day of the new year he had 20lb. sent him from the Earl of Pembrok to buy
bookes.” Pembroke was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain to
the King, among the most powerful men in England. Several other anecdotes are
mentioned that make clear Jonson’s easy familiarity with a wide range of the nobility
and those who mingled regularly in James I’s Court.
Jonson is back in London on May 10, writing to his hitherto
host that King James “professed (I thank God) some joy to see me, and is
pleased to hear of the purpose of my Book”. The book was yet another masque he
proposed to put on for the Court.
Whether he was back in England a week earlier, on May 3, when
the Earl of Pembroke wrote the letter to the Stationer’s Company, referenced in
the previous post [link], forbidding publication of plays purportedly belonging to the
King’s players 'without some of their consents’ is not clear. He was back, however, nine days later when
another order was signed by the Earl of Pembroke
for delivery to the bearer, John Hemminges, on behalf of
himself and the rest of his followers <fellows>, His Majesty’s servants,
the players whose names are underwritten, such allowance for their liveries as
hath been heretofore accustomed. John Hemminges, Henry Condell, John Lowen, Nathan
Field, John Underwood, Nicholas Tooley, Robert Goffe, Robert Benfield, William
Eccleston, John Shanke, Richard Robinson, Joseph Taylor.[4]
It is unlikely, however, that he was in the loop in “accustomed”
matters of daily management such as provision of livery. By this time he
traveled in a more rarified domain as we have seen in the citations above.
Of course, there is no reason to believe that the king ever
took direct interest in the management of his players. They were managed by his
servants. Not only did the players’ service fall under the authority of the
Lord Chamberlain, but Philip Herbert, who held that office, had been known for
his avid association with the London theater world since his teen years when he
was briefly engaged to Edward de Vere’s daughter, Bridget.
It was to Pembroke, in the final analysis, that the player’s
answered. The same Pembroke occasionally intervened in their behalf (actually,
the King’s behalf) with the Stationer’s Company but nothing remotely like
the blanket order issued in May. That was a first and the stationers seem not to
have taken such wholesale interference in their realm particularly well. In the
past they had stayed individual publications at the Chamberlain’s request but
never had been ordered to stay publication potentially of scores of plays.
Many of the plays had already long been owned by publishers
who had paid good money for them and gone through the proper licensing procedure.
Now all of English publishing had reason to wonder whether licensing by the
Stationer’s Company would be sufficient.
[1] Notes
of Ben Jonson’s Conversation with William Drummond of Hawthornden (1842).
2.
[2]
Ibid. 3.
[3]
Ibid. 16.
[4]
Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare (1930). I.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Mr. Prechter’s Accidents. June 27, 2022. “Another Peele signature exists on a receipt for the production of a play acted at Oxford before Albertus de Lasco, Palatine of Siradia, in Poland, in 1583.”
- The Character Montano, in Hamlet, and Polonius’ Famous Advice. May 25, 2022. “The reader may recall that Polonius calls upon Reynaldo to suggest to Laertes’ friends that he is privy to minor misbehaviors, at which he winks,…”
- The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour. May 8, 2022. “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.”
- How Shakespeare gave Ben Jonson the Infamous Purge. November 7, 2021. “Of course, De Vere could not openly accuse Jonson of having outed him as Shakespeare.”
- A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years. Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
2 comments:
Your post is disingenuously selective, including only two snippets while ignoring what we all know is the most important, and personal, testimony of Jonson about his "frenemy," Will Shakespeare:
I REMEMBER the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, “Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; 3 and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.
Jonson's snarkiness--theirs must have been a love-hate relationship--shines through, which makes his statement all the more authentic, since Jonson still must have had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that the man from Stratford went as far as he did with "small Latin and less Greek," at least compared to Jonson's own voluminous learning, of which he was immensely proud.
But from twenty years of personal experience in the Bankside theater, Jonson knew that the man from Stratford was the “real deal,” a man who was “honest, and of an open and free nature,” and who was blessed by nature with “an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions.”
Thus I must ask, is Jonson a liar, i.e., a willing participant in the cover up? Or was he an unwitting conspirator who was so uninformed that he foolishly thought that Stratford actually was Shakespeare the poet.
One or the other must be true, else the candidacy of any alternate Shakespeare is reduced to a parlor game played by incredulous dilletantes who, like Jonson, cannot imagine how Stratford, a man they believe lacked all the advantages they see as theirs, could have done what they know they never could themselves--a cognitive dissonance nicely resolve by imagining Shakespeare a nobleman they can look up to, rather than down on.
So I'm curious? What is your perspective? Jonson as liar? Or Jonson as fool? Or Jonson, whose personal testimony, combined with his FF dedication, leaves no doubt who Shakespeare was.
Asking for a friend.
Jonson takes perverse pleasure in talking in riddles which require a certain amount of cultural literacy from the listener. Modern readers who don't get the references without having been educated immersed in classical writing as it was known to Cambridge circa 1590 don't get it at all. I am afraid honest Ben was having Drummond on a bit as most likely Jonson was well lubricated and Drummond was a notorious gossip.
We have known for a while that the Drummond quotes paraphrase material in Jonson's notes on Shakespeare from his posthumously published notebooks (printed as Discoveries in 1641). Few are aware that these statements are themselves translated from the preface of the 4th book of Controversies of Seneca where they describe the Roman orator Quintus Haterius whose eloquence was driven by grief. Thus without context we should not put too much stock in a facile acceptance of Jonson's comments as it is equally or perhaps more likely he is making a different point which relies on the reader or listener recognizing the source.
For example Small (little) Latin and lesse greek is a shade thrown at Cinthio and Scaliger by Antonio Minturno in Arte Poetica (1564) for preffering Seneca to Sophocles and Euripides. Nobody seriously thinks that Scaliger had a deficiency of ability in either language so we should be careful of taking the reference at face value in the folio. In any event as Jonson says they are names from Meres Palladis Tamia, specifically Octavia Minor and Sappho (small and Lesbos) used in the epigram for Mary Sidney Countess of Pembroke.
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