Biography
Ben Jonson was born in London in 1572, weeks after his father's death; an unknown patron secured him a place at Westminster School. After years as a soldier and actor, he established himself as a playwright with Every Man in His Humour (1598), first performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men with William Shakespeare in the cast, founding the genre of humours comedy. With satires such as Volpone (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614), he became, alongside Shakespeare, the leading dramatist of the Jacobean stage. In 1616 King James I granted him a pension that later earned him recognition as England's first Poet Laureate. Jonson died in London in 1637, impoverished and paralysed, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
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