Sons of Ben
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The phrase Sons of Ben is a mildly problematic term applied to followers of Ben Jonson in English poetry and drama in the first half of the seventeenth century.
Sons of Ben has been applied to the dramatists who were overtly and admittedly influenced by Jonson's drama, his most distinctive artistic achievement. Joe Lee Davis listed eleven playwrights in this group: Richard Brome, Thomas Nabbes, Henry Glapthorne, Thomas Killigrew, Sir William Davenant, William Cartwright, Shackerley Marmion, Jasper Mayne, Peter Hausted, Thomas Randolph, and, William Cavendish.
The term, or the alternative "Tribe of Ben," was also employed as self-description by some of the Cavalier poets who admired and were influenced by Jonson's poetry, including Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Thomas Carew. Reports, perhaps exagerrated, hold that Jonson and his followers congregated at London taverns, especially the Devil's Head, where the upper room, nicknamed the Apollo, was the site of their meetings.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Joe Lee Davis, The Sons of Ben: Jonsonian Comedy in Caroline England, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1967.
- Hugh MacLean, ed., Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets, New York, Norton, 1974.
