Jonson vs. Shakespeare: The Roman Plays

Abstract

Critics rarely bring Ben Jonson's two Roman tragedies – Sejanus and Catiline – into proximity with Shakespeare's four Roman tragedies – Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. Yet doing so in terms of some dramatic features they share illuminates qualities of these plays not easily discernible by other approaches to them. This is especially the case when one adds Shakespeare's tragicomedy Cymbeline to this grouping. Establishing metaphysical perspectives based on ironic Christian allusions in all but one of Shakespeare's Roman plays throws into relief a Catholic dimension of Sejanus and religious dynamics of Catiline more involved in this tragedy than previous critics have realized. Bringing Jonson's and Shakespeare's Roman drama into mutual play also focuses the homeopathic, neo-Aristotelian catharsis of Coriolanus by reference to those in Sejanus and Catiline, as well as the dangerous position of historians and poets in Roman society, as evidenced by the fates of Cordus in Sejanus and Cinna in Julius Caesar. The perceived bad verse of the latter writer clinches judgment against him, even as the vile rhymes of the nameless poet in Julius Caesar disqualifies him from forging amity between Cassius and Brutus. Analysis of the complexity of the most complicated character in Jonson's and Shakespeare's tragedies, respectively Brutus and the Cicero of Catiline, reveals that Jonson's orator combines traits identified with three characters of Julius Caesar: Cassius's capacity for cunning practices, Antony's oratorical eloquence, and Brutus's tragically unrealistic, naïve thinking. This inquiry thus suggests something rarely said of Jonson's tragedies: that he was capable of giving a character in tragedy complexity if not equal to that produced by Shakespeare, yet nevertheless approaching it.