Ben Jonson werd geboren rond 11 juni 1572. Hij kreeg een opleiding aan de Westminster School door de eminente historicus William Camden en werkte eerst in hetzelfde beroep als zijn stiefvader: metselaar. Dat beviel hem echter in het geheel niet en vervolgens diende in hij in het Engelse leger in Vlaanderen. In 1592 keerde hij naar Engeland terug en trouwde op 14 november 1494 hij met Anne Lewis Jonsons tweede bekende toneelstuk, Every Man in His Humour werd opgevoerd in 1598 bij de Lord Chamberlain’s Men aan het Globe-theater met niemand minder dan William Shakespeare in de bezetting. Ook Jonson werd een beroemdheid. In 1628 werd hij benoemd tot City Chronologer of London. Hij stierf op 6 augustus 1637 en werd begraven in de Westminster Abbey.
Epigrammen:
I. — TO THE READER.
PRAY thee, take care, that tak’st my book in hand,
To read it well—that is, to understand.
XIV. — TO WILLIAM CAMDEN.
CAMDEN ! most reverend head, to whom I owe
All that I am in arts, all that I know ;
(How nothing’s that ?) ; to whom my country owes,
The great renown, and name wherewith she goes !
Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,
More high, more holy, that she more would crave.
What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things !
What sight in searching the most antique springs !
What weight, and what authority in thy speech !
Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach.
Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,
Which conquers all, be once o’ercome by thee.
Many of thine, this better could, than I ;
But for their powers, accept my piety.
A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS
IN TEN LYRIC PIECES
I
His Excuse for Loving
Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have my peers ;
Poets, though divine, are men :
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace ;
Or the feature, or the youth :
But the language, and the truth,
With the ardor, and the passion,
Gives the lover weight, and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First, prepare you to be sorry,
That you never knew till now,
Either whom to love, or how :
But be glad as soon with me,
When you know that this is she,
Of whose beauty it was sung,
She shall make the old Man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay ;
Till she be the reason why,
All the world for Love may die.
AGAINST JEALOUSY
by Ben Jonson
Wretched and foolish Jealousy,
How cam’st thou thus to enter me ?
I ne’er was of thy kind :
Nor have I yet the narrow mind
To vent that poor desire,
That others should not warm them at my fire :
I wish the sun should shine
On all men’s fruit, and flowers, as well as mine.
But under the disguise of love,
Thou say’st, thou only cam’st to prove
What my affections were.
Think’st thou that love is help’d by fear ?
Go, get thee quickly forth,
Love’s sickness, and his noted want of worth.
Seek doubting men to please ;
I ne’er will owe my health to a disease.
Ben Jonson (11 juni 1572 – 6 augustus 1637)
William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren, niet ver van de plaats van de slavenopstand uit 1831, die door Nat Turner werd geleid en die later het thema van zijn beroemdste romans werd. Na zijn studie vocht hij tijdens WOII bij de marine.Daarna schreef hij voor veel Amerikaanse tijdschriften essays en kritieken en publiceerde hij talrijke maatschappijkritische romans die in de verteltraditie staan van William Faulkner en Thomas Wolfe. Voor de roman The Confessions of Nat Turner kreeg hij in 1968 de Pulitzer-Prijs. Zijn bestsellerroman Sophie’s Choice die over de vernietigende gevolgen van de holocaust handelt werd in 1982 verfilmd. Styron worstelde met ernstige klinische depressies en zelfmoordneigingen die hij beschreef in zijn memoires Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (1990).
Citaten:
“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.”
“Every writer since the beginning of time, just like other people, has been afflicted by what a friend of mine calls “the fleas of life”-you know, colds, hangovers, bills, sprained ankles and little nuisances of one sort or another.”
“Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion
over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.”
“The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis.”
William Styron (11 juni 1925)