Akademik

(1572-1637)

   English dramatist. Born in Westminster and educated at Westminster School, after a period of soldiering in Flanders he became an actor and playwright in 1597. Imprisoned for killng another actor in a duel, he was converted to Roman Catholicism in prison but 12 years later returned to the Church of England. His most highly regarded plays, all comedies, were Volpone, or The Fox (1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fayre (1614). Also influential were two tragedies inspired by classical models, Sejanus (1603) and Catiline (1611). Jonson was a learned and prolific author, not only of plays but also of of poetry and literary criticism. Although his published works were sometimes critical of his contemporary William Shakespeare, he also wrote a number of passages acknowledging the greatness of his older friend. Many of his plays and several masques were published in a folio edition dated 1616. In later life his works fell out of fashion, and he died in poverty, but he was buried in Westminster Abbey.