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Sejanus: His Fall

Chapter 7: WORKS. —
By Ben Jonson
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About This Book

A dense political tragedy set in the ancient imperial court that follows an influential minister's ascent and catastrophic fall as rivalries, conspiracies, and state machinations unravel. Scenes emphasize rhetorical debates, public accusations, secret plotting, and juridical spectacle, tracing how ambition, flattery, and suspicion corrode institutions and personal loyalties. The play interrogates the uses and abuses of power, the vulnerability of advisers and rulers to manipulation, and the moral and political cost of survival in a climate of fear, employing classical forms and sustained satirical and forensic argument.

COMPLETE LIST OF HIS PUBLISHED WORKS:—

DRAMAS. —

Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601;
The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609;
Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600;
Cynthia’s Revels, 4to, 1601;
Poetaster, 4to, 1602;
Sejanus, 4to, 1605;
Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605;
Volpone, 4to, 1607;
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616;
The Alchemist, 4to, 1612;
Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611;
Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631;
The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631;
The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631;
The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692;
The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640;
A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640;
The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641;
Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.

To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd’s Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher.

POEMS. —

Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640;
Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640;
G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640;
Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692.
Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford’s edition of Works.

PROSE. —

Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641;
The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640.

Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios.

WORKS. —

Fol., 1616, vol. 2, 1640 (1631-41);
fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729;
edited by P. Whalley, 7 vols., 1756;
by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 vols., 1816, 1846;
re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 vols., 1871;
in 9 vols., 1875;
by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838;
by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.;
Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc;
Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885;
Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905;
Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907;
Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890.

SELECTIONS. —

J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886;
Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895;
Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901;
Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905;
Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906;
Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906.

LIFE. —

See Memoirs affixed to Works;
J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886;
Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906;
Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.