Ben Jonson (Benjamin Jonson, c.

11 June 1572 6 August 1637) was a Jacobean playwright, poet, and literary critic, of the seventeenth century, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. Ben Jonson is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Foxe (1605), The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedy (1614), and for his Lyric poetry; he is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I. [1] The literary artist Ben Jonson was a Classically educated, well-read, and cultured man of the English Renaissance (1485) with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (16031625) and of the Caroline era (16251642).[2][3] Ben Jonson said that his family originated from the folk of the Anglo-Scottish border country, which genealogy is verified by the three spindles (rhombi) in the Jonson family coat of arms; the spindle is a diamond-shaped heraldic device shared with the Border-country Johnstone family of Annandale. His clergyman father died two months before Ben's birth; two years later, his mother remarried, to a master bricklayer.[4][5] Jonson attended school in St. Martin's Lane; and later, a family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School, where the antiquarian, historian, topographer, and officer of arms, William Camden (15511623) was one of his instructors On leaving Westminster School, Jonson was to have attended the University of Cambridge, to continue his book learning As an actor, Jonson was the protagonist Hieronimo (Geronimo) in the play The Spanish Tragedy (ca. 1586), by Thomas Kyd (155894), the first revenge tragedy in English literature. Moreover, by 1597, he was a working playwright employed by Philip Henslowe, the leading producer for the English public theatre; by the next year, the production of Every Man in His Humour (1598) had established Ben Jonsons reputation as a dramatist.[7][8] ; in 1598 he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survives, however. An undated comedy, The Case is Altered, may be his earliest surviving play. In 1597 a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe, The Isle of Dogs, was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth I's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe. Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison In 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in His Humour

Royal patronageAt the beginning of the reign of James I, King of England, in 1603
Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the new king The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By 1616 he had produced all the plays on which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved limited success, and the comedies

Volpone, (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil is an Ass (1616). Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd Jonson died on 6 August 1637 and his funeral was held on 9 August. He is buried in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey

DramaApart from two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline, that largely failed to impress
Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for the public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players ." Another early comedy in a different vein, The Case is Altered, is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies The comedies of his middle career, from Eastward Ho to The Devil is an Ass are for the most part city comedy, ". His late plays or "dotages", particularly The Magnetic Lady

Poetry
Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning the most famous are his country-house poem To Penshurst and the poem To Celia (Come, my Celia, let us prove) that appears also in Volpone.

Jonson's works
Plays

A Tale of a Tub, comedy (c. 1596 revised? performed 1633; printed 1640) The Isle of Dogs, comedy (1597, with Thomas Nashe; lost) The Case is Altered, comedy (c. 159798; printed 1609), with Henry Porter and Anthony Munday? Every Man in His Humour, comedy (performed 1598; printed 1601) Every Man out of His Humour, comedy ( performed 1599; printed 1600) Cynthia's Revels (performed 1600; printed 1601) The Poetaster, comedy (performed 1601; printed 1602) Sejanus His Fall, tragedy (performed 1603; printed 1605) Eastward Ho, comedy (performed and printed 1605), a collaboration with John Marston and George Chapman Volpone, comedy (c. 160506; printed 1607) Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, comedy (performed 1609; printed 1616) The Alchemist, comedy (performed 1610; printed 1612) Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed and printed 1611)

Bartholomew Fair, comedy (performed 31 October 1614; printed 1631) The Devil is an Ass, comedy (performed 1616; printed 1631) The Staple of News, comedy (performed Feb. 1626; printed 1631) The New Inn, or The Light Heart, comedy (licensed 19 January 1629; printed 1631) The Magnetic Lady, or Humors Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October 1632; printed 1641) The Sad Shepherd, pastoral (c. 1637, printed 1641), unfinished Mortimer his Fall, history (printed 1641), a fragment

Masques

The Coronation Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 March 1604; printed 1604); with Thomas Dekker A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May 1604; printed 1616) The Entertainment of the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June 1603; printed 1604) The Masque of Blackness (6 January 1605; printed 1608) Hymenaei (5 January 1606; printed 1606) The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July 1606; printed 1616) The Masque of Beauty (10 January 1608; printed 1608)

The Masque of Queens (2 February 1609; printed 1609

Other works

Epigrams (1612) The Forest (1616), including To Penshurst On My First Sonne (1616), elegy A Discourse of Love (1618) Barclay's Argenis, translated by Jonson (1623) The Execration against Vulcan (1640) Horace's Art of Poetry, translated by Jonson (1640), with a commendatory verse by Edward Herbert Underwood (1640)

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was the second child and only son of Jonathan Swift (16401667) and his wife Abigail Erick (or Herrick), of Frisby on the Wreake.[3] His father, a native of Goodrich, Herefordshire he attended Dublin University (Trinity College, Dublin), from where he received his B.A. in 1686, and developed his friendship with William Congreve. Swift was studying for his Master's degree During this second stay with Temple, Swift received his M.A. from Hart Hall, Oxford in 1692.

While at Kilroot, however, Swift may well have become romantically involved with Jane Waring, whom he called "Varina", the sister of an old college friend.[6] . During this time Swift wrote The Battle of the Books, a satire responding to critics of Temple's Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning(1690), although Battle was not published until 1704.

Writer
In February 1702, Swift received his Doctor of Divinity degree from Trinity College, Dublin. During his visits to England in these years, Swift published A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books (1704) and began to gain a reputation as a writer. In 1711, Swift published the political pamphlet "The Conduct of the Allies," attacking the Whig government for its inability to end the prolonged war with France. Swift was part of the inner circle of the Tory government,[11] and often acted as mediator between Henry St John (Viscount Bolingbroke) the secretary of state for foreign affairs (1710 15) and Robert Harley (Earl of Oxford) lord treasurer and prime minister (17111714). Also during these years, he began writing his masterpiece, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships, better known as Gulliver's Travels.

A Meditation upon a Broomstick" (17031710): Full text: munseys.com "A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind" (17071711) The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers (17081709): Full text: U of Adelaide "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (17081711): Full text: U of Adelaide The Intelligencer (with Thomas Sheridan) (17191788): Text: Project Gutenberg The Examiner (1710): Texts: Ourcivilisation.com, Project Gutenberg "A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue" (1712): Full texts: Jack Lynch, U of Virginia "On the Conduct of the Allies" (1713) "Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation" (1713): Full text: Bartleby.com "A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Entered into Holy Orders" (1720) "A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet" (1721): Full text: Bartleby.com Drapier's Letters (1724, 1725): Full text: Project Gutenberg "Bon Mots de Stella" (1726): a curiously irrelevant appendix to "Gulliver's Travels"

"A Modest Proposal", perhaps the most notable satire in English William Congreve (24 January 1670 19 January 1729) was an English playwright and poet.

Early life
Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England (near Leeds).[note 1] His parents were William Congreve (16371708) and his wife, Mary (ne Browning; 1636?1715); a sister was

buried in London in 1672. He spent his childhood in Ireland, where his father, a Cavalier, had settled during the reign of Charles II. Congreve was educated at Trinity College in Dublin

Literary career
William Congreve wrote some of the most popular English plays of the Restoration period of the late 17th century. By the age of thirty, he had written four comedies, including Love for Love (premiered 30 April 1695) and The Way of the World (premiered 1700), and one tragedy, The Mourning Bride (1697) As early as 1710, he suffered both from gout and from cataracts on his eyes. Congreve suffered a carriage accident in late September 1728, from which he never recovered (having probably received an internal injury); he died in London in January 1729, and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
In 1693 Congreve's real career began, and early enough by the latest computation, with the brilliant appearance and instant success of his first comedy, The Old Bachelor, under the generous auspices of Dryden, his second comedy; for the following year witnessed the crowning triumph of his art and life, in the appearance of Love for Love (1695) In 1700 Congreve thus replied to Collier with The Way of the World the unequalled and unapproached masterpiece of English comedy, The fame of the greatest English comic dramatist is founded wholly or mainly on but three of his five plays. His first comedy was little more than a brilliant study after such models as were eclipsed by this earliest effort of their imitato

Poetic diction is the term used to refer to the linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry. The first writer to discuss poetic diction in the Western tradition was Aristotle (384 BC322 BC). In his Poetics, he stated that the perfect style for writing poetry was one that was clear without meanness
The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is an essay, composed by William Wordsworth, for the second edition (published in January 1801, and often referred to as the "1800 Edition") of the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads, and then greatly expanded in the third edition of 1802.