Of the republic of uzbekistan andizhan state university named after z. M. Bobur the faculty of foreign languages
ч Comparative analysis of comedy plays by Shakesperian and Ben Johnson
| A Tale of a Tub, 1596
The Isle of Dogs, 1597 The Case is Altered, 1597–98 Every Man in His Humour, 1598 Every Man out of His Humour, 1599 Cynthia’s Revels, 1600 The Poetaster, 1601 Sejanus His Fall, 1603 Eastward Ho, 1605 Volpone, 1605-6 |
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Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 1609 The Alchemist, 1610 Catiline His Conspiracy, 1611 Bartholomew Fair, 1614 The Devil is an Ass, 1616 The Staple of News, 1626 The New Inn, or The Light Heart, 1629 The Magnetic Lady, or Humors Reconciled, 1632 The Sad Shepherd, 1637 Mortimer His Fall, 1641 |
The most performed of Ben Jonson’s plays are: Every Man in His Humour,Volpone,The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair
Among the critical production addressing Shakespeare's works over the last five years or so, a trend has emerged that would make us reconsider the notion that Shakespeare as a dramatist showed little attention to the benefits of the printing press. [7, 257]
Both are terse, keeping carefully away from the bulk and obfuscation of the often long and bombastic texts that usually serve in that capacity. In both, Shakespeare manages to flatter without grovelling.
Shakespeare's dramatic works to the exclusion of any other, whereas Jonson's plays figured alongside a variety of other literary material. The difference is probably due, in part at least, to copyright difficulties concerning the poems and Sonnets We know that difficulties of this kind were cleared too late for the title of Troilus and Cressida to be included in the catalogue of works, the play being slipped into the volume at the last minute. The objective result of this selection of dramatic material to the exclusion of all else was to make an even bolder claim regarding the literary status of plays.
Another more minor difference between the Jonson and the Shakespeare folios is that where Ben Jonson introduced himself on his title-page as plain Benjamin Jonson, Heminges and Condell give their dead friend the courteous though modest prefix, "Mr." Shakespeare is the third party served by the two editors. Now, one of the glaring differences found in the 1 623 folio is the transfer of the author's portrait to the title page itself. Jonson's picture figured on the left hand page facing the title page in the 1616 volume. No proud Latin statement surrounds the likeness of Shakespeare engraved by Martin Droeshout. Its authentication is carried out by Jonson on the left, opposite the portrait, in his verses "To the Reader":
This figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the Graver had a strife with Nature, to out-doo the life
In the prefatory poem entitled "To the memory of my beloved, / The Author / Mr. William Shakespeare : / And what he hath left us" (the most affectionate lines Jonson ever wrote about Shakespeare), he states: "Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe." Apart from obviously meaning that Shakespeare is immortal, the line is literally accurate in terms of the setting-out of the title page. This gives the reader Shakespeare's portrait where Jonson's folio and James the First's had their titles framed in the picture of a monument.
Because Jonson could never help himself or forget his superior learning, his praise of Shakespeare, warm and moving as it is, contains an allusion to Shakespeare's "small Latine, and lesse Greeke." The statement moved critics and biographers to long dissertations about the nature and level of Shakespeare's learning. [11, 256]
In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote. His own claimed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!" However, Jonson explains, "He was, indeed, honest and of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped".Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." When Shakespeare died, he said, "He was not of an age, but for all time."
Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced a number of Jonson's plays, at least two of which (Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated.
Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio. This poem, "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us", did a good deal to create the traditional view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke", had a natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and sceptical of the masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view:
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