Chapter published in:
Style, Rhetoric and Creativity in Language: In memory of Walter (Bill) Nash (1926-2015)
Edited by Paul Simpson
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 34] 2019
► pp. 85–100

Chapter 5
“My Shakespeare, rise”

Ben Jonson’s pronominal choices in “To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author” (1623)

| University of Murcia

This chapter focuses on the book Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies (1623), which is widely known today as the First Folio. When the First Folio was printed in 1623, the editors and printers included in its preliminary matter several poems in praise of Shakespeare. Among these were two by the author’s friend and rival, Ben Jonson. One of the poems, “To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author”, displays an unusual pronominal density and contains some intriguing pronominal choices. This chapter examines the rhetorical fabric of Jonson’s eulogy for Shakespeare and dissects the critical and ideological implications of its peculiar use of the pronominal system. It focuses in particular on the use of first person possessive pronouns such as “my” and “ours” in relation to Jonson’s personal agenda: his self-fashioning as literary critic and his support, as Poet Laureate in all but name, for King James’s vision of a united Britain.

Keywords: Jonson, Ben, eulogy, First Folio, pronominal choice, pronominal density, pronouns, rhetorical structure, “To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author”
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Jonson and Shakespeare’s antagonistic friendship
  • 3.The First Folio preliminary matter
  • 4.The rhetorical fabric of Jonson’s eulogy
  • 5.Pronominal density and possessive pronouns
  • 6.Coda
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.34.07cal
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Statham, Simon
2020. The year’s work in stylistics 2019. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 29:4 ► pp. 454 ff. Crossref logo

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