MANILA, Philippines — Set in the political snake-pit of Elizabethan England, Columbia Pictures' new thriller “Anonymous” speculates on an issue that has for centuries intrigued academics and brilliant minds such as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Sigmun

In the summer of 1619, two writers evaluated Ben Jonson’s character and career in contrasting terms. Anthony à Wood, in his biographical dictionary of distinguished Oxford alumni, summarized the reasons why Richard Corbett of Christ Church “and other poe

During his early forties Ben Jonson was invited to act as tutor or “governor” to a couple of notoriously difficult young men. He may have won these commissions on account of his sheer physical strength as much as his equally formidable intellectual quali

DIRECTOR Matt Hall's latest project for the Theatre Royal Plymouth People's Company is a rarely-performed Ben Jonson play. Jonson, a contemporary of Shakespeare's, wrote The Devil Is An Ass in 1616. It's a fantastical setting involving Satan and Pug, an

ANONYMOUS (2011). Call it the anti-Shakespeare in Love. Call it the more cultured cousin to Inglourious Basterds. Just don't call Anonymous a fact-based story. There have been many speculations advanced that William Shakespeare actually did not write the

First, let’s acknowledge that Garry Wills‘ book-length discussion of Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar” is full of useful information and likely to be an indispensable companion to students of the play in years to come. It collects in one place much of what y