The Women of Ben Jonson's Poetry

Female Representations in the Non-Dramatic Verse

Barbara Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781351880398
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) is recognised as one of the major poets and dramatists of his time. It is surprising, therefore, that this should be the first study to look specifically at the role of women in his poetry. Barbara Smith challenges previously held conceptions of Jonson as a misogynist, upholding the patronage system that allowed him to work. Through detailed examination of his poetic structures, the influence of Juvenal, Martial and Horace, and Jonson's attitudes to his own female patrons, the Countess of Bedford and Lady Mary Wroth, The Women of Ben Jonson's Poetry demonstrates how seventeenth century cultural values and ideas of gender are both supported and subverted in the poems. 'If we "survey Jonson in his works and know him there", we will find the independence of spirit and originality that made him a rarity in his time and ours.'

CHAPTER ONE:

THE PRAISER

Both gender and genre influence the dynamic between praiser and praised. Since the term ‘praiser’ may in some cases designate the author himself, Ben Jonson, and in others a persona constructed by him, this chapter will take a four-pronged approach in an attempt to address the issue of the nature of the praiser in epideictic poetry. Four questions will be considered: (1) when is the persona the author, Ben Jonson; when is he (or she) an entity separate and distinct from Jonson; (2) to what extent is the author/persona relationship generically determined; (3) what is the nature of the relationship between praiser and praised, and to what extent does the quality of that relationship determine epideixis; and (4) how do female objects of praise affect the posture of the poet and, specifically, what effect does gender have on subject/object identification?

What happens between the praiser and praised, subject and object, is distinctly different if we consider the praiser in terms of each of two aspects: the persona, or ‘poetic self’, and the author, or Ben Jonson’s ‘actual self’. For example, in ‘To Lucy Countesse of Bedford’ (Ep. LXXVI), the ‘poetic self’ seeks to create a Galatea, and describes the qualities with which he would inform her:

This morning, timely rapt with holy fire,

I thought to forme unto my zealous Muse,

What kinde of creature I could most desire,

To honor, serve, and love; as Poets use.

I meant to make her faire, and free, and wise,

Of greatest bloud, and yet more good then great

I meant the day-starre should not brighter rise,

Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat.

I meant shee should be curteous, facile, sweet,

Hating that solemne vice of greatnesse, pride;

I meant each softest vertue, there should meet,

Fit in that softer bosome to reside.

Onely of a learned, and a manly soule

I purposed her; that should, with even powers,

The rock, the spindle, and the sheeres controule

Of destinie, and spin her owne free houres.

Such when I meant to faine and wish’d to see,

My Muse bad, Bedford write, and that was shee.¹

He describes an intention to write a poem and relates his thought process as he sits back, merely thinking about the ideal object of his poem. The ‘I’ of line 14 refers to the poetic self who ‘purpos’d her a learned, and a manly soule’, and who, at the behest of his Muse, will write a one-word poem ‘Bedford’. This poetic self is told that such a woman already exists, that the process of writing this poem is not one of creation, but of discovery. The reader reads a poem that was never written by the ‘poetic self’, only thought by him. The persona considers what ideal feminine qualities are; admittedly and thematically subjective, the poet seeks to create a creature ‘I could most desire’, and not until the Muse interferes does he discover that in fact such a creature already exists. What the persona gains from praising, which is not really praising at all, but rather fantasizing, is a clear vision of his ideal poetic object, which when coupled with a jolt from his Muse produces the potentially – the poet has not yet put pen to paper – most concise epigram ever to be written, the one-word poem ‘Bedford’. What is the effect on this persona? He realizes that his fantasy is grounded in reality, that the object he ‘meant to faine, and wish’d to see’ is already in his acquaintance, that the poetic self did not need initial inspiration from his muse since he himself thoughtfully generated the theme of his poem, but rather needed only prompting by the Muse in order to match real and ideal. He discovers that his Muse functions not as a vehicle through which idea is transformed into poetry, but as a sort of jolt to his memory.

For Ben Jonson, as distinct from the ‘poetic self’ or persona, an entirely different dynamic takes place. Jonson knows from the outset that he will write of the Countess of Bedford, that his purpose is not passively to happen upon his ideal object, but actively to celebrate her, and that this poem will consist not of one word but many. For him, the poetic thought process occurred long before we read the first word. Moreover, it is not described, but may have gone something like this: ‘I want to write a poem of praise to the Countess of Bedford that describes her personal qualities, that presents her as unique, and as an ideal poetic subject’. This thought process, unlike the persona’s, is unrecorded. The poet presents his poetic self as unable to solve a problem: how to create a perfect poetic object with pen and paper. If Jonson ever really did face this sort of snag in ‘To Lucy Countesse of Bedford’, it is not evident in this finely crafted poem. What is the effect of praising the perfect object of poetry upon this praiser? Undeniably he is himself elevated by his association with so admirable a figure. He is also self-conscious in his use of metaphor and rhetorical technique; there is no metaphor or rhetorical technique in the persona’s poem which consists of only one word. And finally, since the persona’s writing experience is a process of discovery, not praise, his poem does not exhibit the rhetorical excess that praise adds to ordinary speech, the ‘epideixis’. Jonson’s poem ‘stresses itself as …message’ (Fineman, 1986, p. 6), while the persona’s does not. What is true of ‘both’ identities, however, is that they depend on a praiseworthy object. The persona depends on her to validate his fantasy; both depend on her to be an admirable, deserving object of encomium. Both are involved in a recursive reciprocity between subject and object that obscures the distinction between them.

Subject/Object Identification

The praiser functions as both mirror and lamp; he reflects and illuminates through mimesis and metaphor. In the reflexive phenomenon of panegyric, the praiser himself is reflected and illuminated via his poetic rendering of his object. The reflexivity between praiser and praised is established at the outset of Epistle XIII, ‘To Katherine, Lady Aubigny’, not only through subtle, reflexive rhetoric, but thematically as well. The poet states that his poem is a mirror which will reflect the internal beauties of his object. However, since this poem/mirror is the product of the poet’s introspective self, that is, the poem reflects not only Lady Aubigny’s internal beauties but also the poet’s thoughts (his conclusions such as: ‘There are so few [good minds]’; ‘Men are not just’; ‘gifts of chance…raise not virtue’; ‘Tis safe to have [no companions]’), and so he is reflected as well. Anyone who speaks truthfully of good minds is flirting with danger, outnumbered by those with ‘bad’ minds, and subject to their collective derision. As far as danger goes, subject and object are equally threatened: ‘So both the prais’d and the praisers suffer’.

But the poet courageously contends with vice and sin, refusing to alter his ‘look’ or abandon himself for the sake of others’ socially constructed false values. It is this introspection that allows the poet to identify himself with virtue and truth – and thereby with the person complimented who embodies his ideals – and to resolve not to abandon ‘himself’, that is, his ideals and his inclination to act on them. Such abandonment would also extend to her; she would, in a sense, be ‘abandoned’, since her praiseworthy qualities would have to remain unrecorded. In this poem, however, subjectivity and objectivity combine to create the persona, the ‘I’ whose very identity is not only that of praiser, but specifically the praiser of Katherine: ‘I, Madame, am become your praiser’. Praiser and praised ‘create’ each other.

Jonson, here as elsewhere, distinguishes among the conventional types of praiseworthy qualities. There are gifts of chance: beauty and wealth which are obvious qualities of Lady Aubigny, but have no relation to virtue. There are gifts of fortune: ‘blood and match’ that enhance her ‘happy fate’, which the Jonsonian mirror will not reject, and which, in fact, it values more highly than gifts of chance which ‘may vice enhance’ rather than happiness. But there is no question that the poet’s mirror will be positioned by him to reflect what he considers the ultimate quality, virtue. Only virtue gives meaning to beauty, wealth, blood, and match. Without virtue, ‘all the rest were sounds, or lost’. Virtue alone gives meaning to ‘sounds’ and defeats ‘time’ and ‘chance’. But poetically, virtue alone does not infuse ‘sound’ (=‘words’) with meaning. It is the poet’s metaphoric/epideictic skill, when combined with the subject matter – here, virtue – which imbues sound with meaning. Further, it is the poet’s identification with his object that enables him to render praise both mimetically and metaphorically. Therefore, ‘meaning’ is the yield of her virtue plus the poet’s identification with that virtue and his skill in fusion. The nature of this identification determines the way the poet presents his poetic self. The poetic self both determines and is determined by the object. This can be seen more readily if we look at the structure of the epistle.

The poem is divided into six parts. First, the poet speaks of the dangers of being among the virtuous minority (lines 1–20). Secondly, he describes his poem as a mirror and reveals what praiseworthy attributes of Lady Aubigny will be included, and to what degree, in its reflective field (21–52). Third, a solitary life is endorsed if interaction means contagion (53–70). Fourth, satire is aimed at women who indulge in what the poet has previously censured, that is, misuse of gifts with which they have been endowed by chance and fortune (71–88). Their riches are used in ways that reveal their folly, their beauty is laughably artificial, and the quality of their ‘match’ is irrelevant, since they have succeeded in ruining their husbands and marriages by their own moral turpitude. Section five (89–100) employs a ship conceit that metaphorically connects Lady Aubigny with the rare, difficult, and hazardous navigation that avoidance of such destructive practices demands, and a tree conceit, that connotes her blessed fertility. Section six (101–124) reveals the poet as a ‘priest’, one who prophecies blessings in the way of a child, greater ‘rites’ that he is forbidden to reveal, the continuation of a love-filled and spiritual marriage, and one who urges her to ‘use’ the ‘truest glass’ of poetry which will remain a constant reflector of her immutable virtue.

I point this out here because it is curious that the poetry directly eulogizing Lady Aubigny is interrupted by sections three and four. In sections one and two the subject/object identification is quite different from that in sections five and six. The qualities praised and the praiser differ. This striking change, as we shall see, results from the gender difference in subject and object.

Joel Fineman rightly argues that the poetics of praise is important for a literary history of poetic subjectivity, for it can be shown that the assumptions of epideixis determine in particular ways, not only the techniques and conceits of the praising poet, but also his literary personality, i.e., the way the poet presents his poetic self.² What are Jonson’s assumptions as they are evidenced in ‘To Katherine Lady Aubigny’? First that she is a worthy object of tribute, secondly that the persona is particularly suited to be her eulogist since they share the same values, that praise consists of mimesis and metaphor, and that the persona is uniquely capable of praising the inner qualities of his subject since his poetic vision penetrates the physical to reveal the beauties of the mind. His technique is to use his unique vision (comprised of cognition, recognition, and precognition) in conjunction with his correlative poetic gifts: the abilities to employ mimesis, metaphor, satire, and augury. The governing conceit is that his poem is a mirror, an instrument created by him, reflective of his own unique techniques (‘My mirror is more subtile, cleere, refined’) and epideictic skill as well as Lady Aubigny’s inner, mental beauties. The nature of the praise is thematic, and involves both subject and object – Lady Aubigny and the poet’s literary self. Epideictic poetry is reflexive; what the poet sees in his object, external to himself, is also an image of the extoller, since panegyric consists of that which the praiser deems admirable, which he internalizes, and with which he identifies. The laudation of women by a male poet allows for intense subject/object identification, yet is not without limitation.

There is an association of ego and ego ideal which serves to elevate the poet’s self. His own admiration of virtue exalts him:

I…profess myself in love

With every virtue…

…I am at fewd with sinne and vice.

The poet’s rhetoric reflects an ideal image of himself as well as of Lady Aubigny; the poetic mirror reflects both subject and object. This correspondence between objective reference and subjective self-reference obscures the separation of object and subject. Sections one and two are thematically self-referential. In lines 1–70 the first person pronoun is used eight times: (1) ‘I…professe my self in love with…virtue’, (2) ‘I am at fewd with sin and vice’, (3) ‘I…have suffered’, (4) ‘I should faint; or fear to draw true lines’, (5)‘I, Madame, am become your praiser’, (6) ‘I will not say’, (7) ‘I can say’, (8) ‘I reflect’. The first four instances refer to the praiser, the fifth to both the praiser and the praised, and the last three to the connection between praiser and method of praise. All three concerns are ego-related. ‘My’ is used five times in these sections. It is through these aspects of the self that Lady Aubigny is eulogized, with which Jonson’s poetics are infused, and with which the persona becomes identified with the meritorious addressee. Subject and object are bonded by (a) the poet’s love of virtue and her embodiment of it; (b) his wit, the source of deictic indication which manifests itself in poetic conceits inspired by her; (c) his ‘look’, i.e., ‘gaze’ which remains unclouded and so allows for accurate objective imitation of his object; (d) his ‘character’, i.e., ‘words’ which relates her ‘selfe’ to ‘her selfe’ and reveals her features; and (e) his mirror, which while reflecting her, is fashioned and infused with his own subjective posture.

Section three, on the poet’s approbation of the solitary life, prepares the reader for the following satire. It depicts the solitary life as preferable to a life shared with ‘contagious’ companions who cannot ‘see/Right, the right way’, whose vision, unlike that of the poet, is guided by varying external illusions rather than by abiding introspective truths. Surrounded by the shallow, self-deluded masses, praised and praiser stand together alone in their virtue and clarity of vision. And what is the image of those whom Lady Aubigny is encouraged to continue avoiding? They are portrayed as the pitiful, vicious counterparts to the right-thinking poet/countess. Instead of seeking ‘truth’s complexion’, as Lady Aubigny does when she looks into her ‘mirror’, they ‘weare masks’. They seek to identify with the foreign and external rather than with the authentic and inward, and in fact bar all access to true identity through the use of masks, cosmetics, and alien fashions. They outwardly boast of their sins rather than practice introspection as does the poet who provides the countess with the figurative means to facilitate what becomes her own literal introspection. What the poet is confident she will discover in her mirror is that she resembles her praiser, or more accurately...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter I: The Praiser
• Chapter II: Motivation
• Chapter III: Patrons’ Lives
• Chapter IV: Blame
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index