Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford

Name: Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford
Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson

Ben Jonson speaks to an Alderman from Stratford who knows Shakespeare and has been invited to drink while Shakespeare is away rehearsing. Jonson marvels at Shakespeare’s power to create worlds full of timeless English life, whether in Fairyland, Ilion, Rome, or elsewhere. He sees in the Stratford man an intelligence that Shakespeare himself has recognized, unlike the “sad average” of ordinary townsmen. Yet Jonson also sees Shakespeare divided between his greatness and his longing for Stratford, rank, property, and the “House” he intends to have there. Jonson portrays Shakespeare as a man incapable of being content with any single identity. He is greater than a king, yet cannot be king even of Stratford; he longs for recognition from lords while resenting the humiliations of his profession and their laughter. His ambition for a Warwickshire dukedom and a grand house seems comic to Jonson, but it is also a symptom of a deeper restlessness. Shakespeare cannot return to a simple home by Avon, for his imagination and experience have made that impossible. Jonson imagines Shakespeare as an extraordinary boy whose vision set him apart even then, perhaps understood only by a dog. He jokes that Shakespeare needs Greek and Aristotle, but Shakespeare dismisses such learning, and Jonson admits that rules and the classical unities do not matter to him. Shakespeare makes his own path through time, untouched by established roads. He is outwardly quiet and pleasant, but inwardly burdened by devils, irritation, sorrow, pain, and immense creative force. The speaker recognizes Shakespeare’s superiority to his contemporaries and to other writers who struggle, fail, or become consumed by envy. Shakespeare may return to Stratford, but London itself would be poorer without him. Jonson suggests that Shakespeare’s relations with women have wounded him and become transformed into poetry, especially in the Sonnets. He has escaped ordinary social belonging: others cannot truly possess him, though they listen to him and learn from his uncanny insight into themselves. Shakespeare’s vision is shown as both artistic and destructive. He sees a moral law in human life, with consequences of fire and iron for those who defy it, but he has been deprived of faith, innocence, and illusion. He knows too much about human weakness, false greatness, treacherous enemies, and unreliable friends. His awareness leaves him vulnerable to despair. Jonson encounters him walking gloomily in Lambeth, where Shakespeare says that life is “Nothing”: flies are caught by spiders, spiders are swept away, and bugs and emperors alike return to dust beneath unchanged stars. Jonson responds by taking Shakespeare to drink, though Shakespeare’s unease, sickness, thrift, and preoccupation with his Stratford house reveal how strained he is. Still, Jonson believes that clouds will pass and that Shakespeare will produce unheard-of fruit from his turbulent imagination. He hopes Shakespeare will live long enough to give the world what is raging within him, though Shakespeare speaks skeptically of immortality and fears that it may mean only oblivion. Jonson deeply loves Shakespeare, “this side idolatry,” and regrets hurting him with a joke. He fears that sleeplessness, thinking, pain, and inward turmoil may shorten his life, but insists that Shakespeare will not go yet: Cleopatra and further work remain, bringing both terror and cleansing calm. In the end, Jonson asserts that nothing like this “mad, careful, proud, indifferent Shakespeare” has ever appeared in England or in any of the ancient cities he names. Yet even such greatness remains entangled with Shakespeare’s persistent desire for his house in Stratford.

By Edwin Arlington Robinson · First published 1920 · Genre: Dramatic Monologue, Narrative Poetry, Historical Poetry · 4,477 words

First lines

YOU are a friend then, as I make it out, / Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us

Will put an ass's head in Fairyland

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Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford is listed on Textopian as a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, dated 1920 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson
Date: 1920 CE
Language: English
Genres: Dramatic Monologue, Narrative Poetry, Historical Poetry, Literary Historical Fiction, Character Study
Length: 4,477 words
Structure: 1 section, 284 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Genres

Dramatic Monologue — The poem consists of an extended imagined speech by Ben Jonson, whose distinctive voice, judgments, anxieties, and admiration shape the entire work.
Narrative Poetry — Though largely reflective, the poem develops through anecdotes, encounters, recollections, and predictions concerning Shakespeare's life and career.
Historical Poetry — It imaginatively recreates the late Elizabethan and Jacobean literary world, invoking Shakespeare, Jonson, Robert Greene, the Globe, Stratford, London, and Cleopatra.
Literary Historical Fiction — Robinson invents a psychologically rich conversation and perspective around real historical figures while drawing on known details and legends of Shakespeare's life.