Ben Jonson

1572/3-1637. Dramatist, scholar, poet. One of the major rivals of William Shakespeare and representative of the Comedy of Humours. In the 17th century the court commissioned him to write court masques. While Shakespeare was considered irregular, messy and chaotic (and in dire need of "improvement") during the time of the Restoration, Ben Jonson advanced to the status of model dramatist, because he kept to the (pseudo-)Aristotelean unities. There was even a school of writers which called itself "the sons of Ben".