Ben Jonson Poems

Epigrams

The epigram style was usually a short and witty poem written in heroic couplets that had a pithy turn at the end.

“To Fine lady Would-Be”

A poem about abortion and the reasons why a “lady” would use an apothecary to bury her “not born” children. The end of the poem almost seems as if her body itself is the tomb for the buried. Jonson claims that the reasons why she wouldn’t want a child, the world thinks she’s barren, but he speculates it could be pain, loss of complexion, her figure, and loss of time and sport.

“On Something that Walks Somewhere”

A poem about an “it” but one that doesn’t even seem to be about a person. It’s just a social type as pure materiality, and bad materiality at that. Rather than an indictment against a particular person, it’s a poem that criticizes a type of behavior and social relations. The line, “and such from whom let no man hope least good” shows the reader that there’s a social ecology of value.

“Inviting a Friend to Supper”

A very long epigram with Epicurean ideals, trying to convince his patron and friend William Herbert Earl of Pembroke to come to dinner. In fact, the poem itself serves not only as an invitation, but a meal itself as it is laid out before us. The event is at Jonson’s “poor house”, but Jonson says it is the entertainment (and company) that make the evening, not the quality of the food. Nevertheless, Jonson’s meal plan is in the poem, as long as its affordable its possible, but in the middle of the poem he writes, “I’ll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come: / Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some/ May yet be there…” Everything that follows the “lie” seems questionable then, including whether or not they’ll be sad the following morning. Implicit in the poem is almost a sense of melancholy because all of the mirth and enjoyment happen during the dinner, but what of before and after?

“On My First Son”

Following the death of his firstborn son, Jonson wrote this poem. Jonson claims that his biggest sin was hoping for more out of his son’s life than just seven years. He wishes that he wasn’t a “father” at all anymore or maybe that he didn’t encounter any other fathers? In any event he wants it to be known that his son was his best creation and best “piece of poetry.”

“On my first Daughter”

Following the death of his first daughter, Mary, at 6 months old, Jonson wrote this poem about how his daughter is in “safety of her innocence” because she died so young, and will go join Queen Mary in heaven as part of her virgin train.

“To William, Earl of Pembroke”

Jonson writes about his patron and friend that William is an epigram in and of himself, one that should be studied if people want to know how the Commonwealth and public good will survive.

“To Mary, Lady Wroth”

Mary Wroth is so wonderful that her true internal Sidney-ness shines out from her “noted for what flesh such souls were framed, / Know you to be a Sidney, though unnamed”. Jonson doesn’t even need to write this poem for her, because she’s so good and wonderful that she doesn’t need his praise.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Sonnet 15

A Shakesperian sonnet, three quatrains and a couplet. This poem focuses on time’s effects on all things of nature, but particularly on his love. Everything fades under time, but Shakespeare creates immortality for his love in his poems. Even though everything in the world seems to want to take away his love’s beauty, Shakespeare knows he can keep her beauty in his mind and for all of perpetuity by writing it down, thus becoming more powerful than time or nature.

Sonnet 18

Similarly with 15, this poem focuses on how to keep his love’s beauty alive by writing about it. The interesting things I found about both 15 and 18 are the allusions to nature, which both use “grafting” as a metaphor. In 15, Shakespeare “engrafts” his love with his poem, allowing a new part of her (the poetic part) to grow from the old. In 18, it’s similar, only here his love is grafted to time itself through his poetry and has thus become immortal.

Sonnet 25

This sonnet is about fame and how it can be dangerous to use others, “stars,” to become famous because they can use their own power to demolish you. For Shakespeare, its much safer to have no power or influence, but to be relatively safe to make your own way in the world rather than use others to gain fame.

Sonnet 60

This poem is about how fast time moves and that life is over before you know it. There’s metaphor on metaphor in this poem, much of which has to do with the earth and Jesus.

Sonnet 97

A seasonal poem, Shakespeare feels as though its winter even though it’s summer because his love is absent from him. Even though autumn has come and the fruits of man’s labor have all come up, he cannot enjoy them because his love is gone. Nature itself seems to be in mourning, as the birds go quiet because she’s absent, and if they do sing, its because winter is on its way.

Sonnet 147

Shakespeare’s body is equated with the Earth, and his soul is the inhabitant. He wants to know why his soul, who spends so brief a time in his body, lingers and puts on such a show when heaven is waiting. Instead of spending all this time/money on food/eating which the worms will only eat anyway, he wants to instead start spending time preparing for divinity. Once he’s dead, death itself will be dead, and then he won’t have to fear dying.

Margaret Cavendish – “A World in an Earring”

This poem uses extended metaphors to get across the message that there may be many worlds beyond the one that we’re on, and, beyond that, that what is not visible to the human eye or tools of knowledge cannot be assumed. Cavendish explores the idea that the world, with its sun, planets, and surrounding stars, is contained within an earring on a woman’s ear. This world contains everything our world does, fish, poles, gardens, plagues, cities, life and death, etc. But all of these events pass the wearer of the earring by and she remains oblivious. The wearer of the earring is not the creator, and heaven and “Elysium” still exist, which indicates that there is a God, but that our understanding of the universe is focused too narrowly.

This poem speaks to gender issues and has a quasi-feminist argument, although its more of a matriarchal powertrip than a leveling equality that true feminism would have.

Some of the things that interest me are her mentioning diamonds, golden mines, spices, earthquakes, and plagues as they relate to my attempt at locating an ecocritical argument in the 17^th century.