An Image of the Times. Nils-Johan Jorgensen

CLASSICAL LITERARY SOURCES

       Decorum

      Who soever hath bene diligent to read advisedlie over, Terence, Seneca, Virgil, Horace … he shall easily perceive, what is fitte and decorum in evrie one.¹⁵

      DECORUM SETS DOWN that characters in plays must behave according to their age and social position, to be defined in a fixed way by the playwright and remain within these limits.¹⁶ Cicero defined the Latin term decorum, based on a Greek word used by Pythagoras to indicate balance and appropriateness: ‘In an oration, as in life, nothing is harder than to determine what is appropriate. The Greek call it kairos; let us call it decorum.’¹⁷ Aristotle had used a similar concept, to prepon, to denote decorum.

      The static identity of decorum may seem anathema to serious characterization and development, what you see in the beginning is what you get in the end. Indeed, such dramatic propriety could appear suffocating, a limitation and fencing in of the creative process, but inside the wall great comedy appeared as the expanding elements fused with a new artistic decorum.

      The search for Jonson’s sources begins in his library, but as Vulcan (fire) and Necessity (poverty), as he himself admits, took an unfair share of the grant he had received from Lord Pembroke, many books in the original library collection have disappeared from the records. What remains is still comprehensive and impressive. This rare stage scholar was an omnivorous reader. At the same time, his approach to books and sources made him both selective and dogmatic. His choices reveal distinct preferences and an essential part of the focus lies in the field of classical literature and neo-classical literary theory. Works by Aristophanes, Terence, Aelius Donatus, Erasmus, Julius Caesar Scalinger, Martin de Roa, Juan Luis Vives, Daniel Heinsius and George Puttenham were found on the shelves, as were works by Aristotle, Cicero and Horace.¹⁸

      Of particular interest is the annotated fifteenth century manuscript of Horace’s Ars Poetica, a letter, an epistle, a reflection on art and literary propriety. The closest I got inside Jonson’s own library was to hold in my hand this book from his collection. It is an important source to help understand his preoccupation with the ancient masters of Greece and Rome, how they would influence his writing and his humorous characters. ‘At his death in 1637 he was celebrated as the founder and chief representative of an English literary culture to rival that of the ancients.’¹⁹

      I was welcomed to the library of St. John’s College, Oxford. The annotated fifteenth century manuscript was carefully placed in front of me at the desk.²⁰ It had Ben Jonson’s own signature. This was a renaissance moment for an enthusiastic student. It was more than circumstantial evidence, not only of ownership, but a book that Jonson had studied in detail. His confident underlinings proved his presence. In the second part of the manuscript there are annotations and monograms both by Sir John Radcliffe and Ben Jonson.²¹ I could detect Jonson’s hand; he had even corrected grammar and spelling. The underlinings, as in this example, indicated critical curiosity, insight and moral purpose: Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons rem tibi Socraticae poterunt ostendere chartae, verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur. (The source and fount of good writing is wisdom. The Socratic pages can show you the matter and when it is in hand words will not be loath to follow.)

      Jonson highlights the qualities the playwright must establish to maintain the illusion and the attention of the audience:

       Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto

       Et quocumque volent animum auditoris agunto.

       Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adsunt

       Humani vultus: si vis me flere, dolendum est

       Primūm ipsī tibi; tūnc tua me īnfortunia laedent.

      (It is not enough for poems to have beauty; they must have charm and lead the hearer’s soul where they will. As men’s faces smile on those who smile, so they respond to those who weep. If you would have me weep, you must first feel grief yourself.)

      Then follows the fundamental Horatian comment on decorum in art, expressing the proper relation between speech and situation and the distinct differences between a god and a hero, an old man and a young man, a housewife and a nurse, a merchant and a farmer, and between men from different places and countries:

       Si dicentis erūnt fortunis absona dicta:

       Romani tollent equites peditesque cachinnūm.

       Intererit multūm divusne loquatur an heros:

       Maturusne senex an adhuc florente iuvēnta

       Fervidus: & matrona potens an sedula nutrix:

       Mercatorne vagus cultorne virentis agelli.

       Colchus an Assyrius, Thebis nutritus an Argis.

      (If the speaker’s words sound discordant with his fortunes, the Romans, in boxes and pit alike, will raise a loud guffaw. It will make a vast difference, whether a god be speaking or a hero, a ripe old man or one still in the flower and fervour of youth, a dame of rank or a bustling nurse, a roaming trader or the tiller of a verdant field, a Colchian or an Assyrian, one bred at Thebes or at Argos.)

      Another aspect of the principle of appropriateness, decorum of genre, is given attention. This is indeed a rule that Jonson strictly obeyed as critic and dramatist. The comic and the tragic should not be mixed; the genre must remain within its appropriate frame:

       Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non volt:

       Indignatur itēm privatis ac prope socco

       Dignis carminibusi narrari cena Thyestae:

       Singula quaeque locūm teneānt sortita decentem.

      (A theme for comedy refuses to be set forth in verses of tragedy; likewise the feast of Thyestes scorns to be told