Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was an English playwright and poet, the most learned and combative of Shakespeare's contemporaries. The stepson of a bricklayer, he was educated at Westminster School, soldiered in the Low Countries and turned actor and playwright, killing a fellow actor in a duel in 1598 and escaping the gallows by pleading benefit of clergy. His comedies Every Man in His Humour, Volpone, The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair satirize the greed and folly of London, and his masques for the court of James I made him in effect the first poet laureate. His epigrams and lyrics shaped the Cavalier poets who called themselves the Tribe of Ben.