Poetry and Prose of Ben Johnson

______Ben Johnson clearly imparted personal values in his written work. He saw a balance of high principles and disciplined poetry as art. This artful creation of poetry and prose demanded more than inspiration. He wrote, "he can lepe forth suddainley a Poet, /There goes more to his making…for to Nature, Exercise, Imitation, and Studie, Art must be added to make all these perfect."

______Johnson subscribed to the of neo-classical thinking and beliefs. In order to write well, it was first necessary to understand the subject through other writers' work, viewed much like a springboard.

______A true craftsman poet, in Johnson's eyes, must be ready to polish and revise to "bring all to the forage and file again." Johnson maintained that poetry must possess all the virtues of good prose. He told a fellow friend, Drummond, " he wrote all his <verses> first in prose, for his master Cambden had learned him."1 Johnson desired harnomy in his technique. He said style should be "smooth, gentle, and sweet; like a Table upon which you may run your finger without rubs, and your nayle cannot find a joynt."2

______From Johnson's 'Epigram' on the death of his first,

____________Farewell thou child of my right hand, and joy?

____________My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.

____________Seven years tho' went lent to me, and I thee pay,

____________Exacted by thy fate, on the first day...

The words flow smoothly in combination with firm strength, not simple, but direct. His intense emotions are subtly evident, while he avoids becoming mawkish or sentimental.

______"Pure and neat language I love, yet plain and customary."4 Unlike his peers, Johnson was not especially inventive in coining compound nouns and adjectives in which Elizabethan English was particularly rich. However, "bookworm" is one of his creations, and so are "half witted," pig-headed," and "close-mouthed."

______The Epigram collected a colorful array of Johnson's writing styles. To the edition, he added the elegy and the lyric, as well as some other unclassified poems. He hardly dabbled in "low" poetry. In Poetaster, he relegated the erotic poetry. The short humorous poem to open The Forrest, "Why I write not of love," never even attempted to disclose any self-revelations. Some of his poetry appeared to contrast the works of Donne. For example, they are hardly passionate, only at times fervent. They are shy to admit sensuous feelings. The poems are marked with self-conscious irony throughout, then concludes on a lighter note with two humorous pieces. Johnson's moral philosophy may be evident here; it was not the part of the truly good man to celebrate passion or sensuality, and one safeguard was to introduce the pose of one who 'ever cometh last in the dance of love' and does not take it all too seriously.

______The group of poems, "Ill Charis" in The Underwood, may express some real incident in Johnson's own life. The "Charis" poems are connected with The Devil is an Ass. Attempts have been made to read autobiographical significance into this. There is, however, no real evidence to support any of these interpretations.