Somberness and Artistic Endeavors: Authorship, Fatherhood, and Stoic Resilience in Ben Jonson’s “On My First Sonne”

Abstract

Ben Jonson's “On My First Sonne” is a moving elegy interweaving fatherhood, authorship, and philosophical exploration of death in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period. The poem is an expression of Jonson's conflict between individual sorrow and stoic restraint over his son's death, interrogating the cultural norms of patriarchal lineage and primogeniture. With an elegiac tone, Jonson investigates the conflict between affective mourning and philosophical acceptance through the metaphor of the son's death as a possible stagnation in his writing life. The compact form of the poem reflects the shortness of the child's life, while its language, filled with commercial and Christian symbolism, highlights the commodification of existence and the weight of sin. Jonson’s employment of apostrophe and numerology, specifically the figure of seven, enriches the philosophical undertones, linking individual loss with wider humanistic and theological controversies. The poem eventually moves away from despair towards acceptance, deifying the son and Jonson's artistry. The juxtaposition of paternal grieving with writerly identity blurs societal mores and asserts the timeless power of poetry as a vehicle of overcoming loss. This paper analyzes how Jonson balances these dual roles, providing insight into the cultural and philosophical nuances of his era but with a focus on Stoic philosophy as an interpretive frame for understanding how he reacts to loss