Born in London in 1573, Ben Johnson would be no stranger to tragedy. His Protestant father--who had been imprisoned and deprived of his estate during the Catholic reign of Mary Tudor--had died only a month earlier, and his mother, left penniless and with no means of supporting her young son, was forced to marry a bricklayer. But despite these tragic beginnings, it was for his humor that Ben Johnson would be known.
At Westminster school, the scholar Camden recognized Johnson's exceptional literary gifts and took the young man under his tutelage. Though Johnson never received a university education, Camden's instruction proved more than adequate. He became one of the most learned men of Elizabethan times and eventually received honorary degrees from both universities.
Perhaps in remembrance of his father, Johnson enlisted with the English supporters of the Protestant Hollanders who were defending their religious and political liberties against Catholicism and Spanish rule. The fiery young poet proved to be as formidable with the sword as he was with the pen. In one particular act of bravado, he advanced before the English volunteers, challenged a Spaniard to single combat, slew him, and then--in classic Homeric tradition--stripped the corpse of its armor.
In 1592, he returned to London and married a woman whom he would later describe as "a shrew, yet honest." In 1596, she gave birth to a son whom Johnson called his "best piece of poetry." He was devestated when the young boy was struck down with the plague at the age of seven.
Johnson plunged himself into the bohemian life of the city, drank alot, acted (badly), doctored Thomas Keyd's Spanish Tragedy for Phillip Henslowe, and adapted two Roman comedies in The Case Is Altered. But it was not until 1598 that he finally emerged from the crowd of unrecognized playwrights with Every Man in His Humour. Dedicated to Master Camden, Every Man in His Humour is a masterpiece of its kind.
