SOURCE: Jackson, Gabriele Bernhard. Introduction to Ben Jonson: Every Man in His Humour, edited by Gabriele Bernhard Jackson, pp. 1-34. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1969.

In the following essay, Jackson provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of Every Man in His Humour, contending that “all Jonson's characteristic concerns, values, turns of mind and phrase, dramatic techniques, structural designs—all are here ready to be selected, developed, recombined.”

When Ben Jonson placed Every Man in His Humor at the head of his collected works and alluded to it in his dedication as his first-fruits, both position and allusion were symbolically appropriate, as he was no doubt fully aware. He had earlier dramatic writing to his credit, including at least one full-length comedy; but unlike what had come before, this springtime production held all the flavors of the mature harvest. All Jonson's characteristic concerns, values, turns of mind and...