On my First Son Literary Elements

The speaker is Ben Jonson, who writes in the first person about the death of his son.

The meter is iambic pentameter (five pairs of one unstressed and one stressed syllable). The poem is composed of six rhymed couplets. They neatly divide into three sections of four lines each, although these are not divided into stanzas on the page.

In the third and fourth lines, Jonson uses a conventional metaphor comparing life to a loan. The son, who always belonged to God, was just a loan, and when he died, Jonson repaid his debt and returned him to his real owner.

In the tenth line, Jonson uses metaphor to compare his son to a work of poetry, calling him Ben Jonson's "best piece of poetry." The metaphor stresses Jonson's impotence, by emphasizing that the best thing he ever made—in whose creation he played only a small part—now lies dead in the ground.

In line 7, Jonson alliterates the /s/ sound, "To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage."

In line 10, Jonson alliterates the /p/ sound, "Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."

In the last line, Jonson vows to never again like so much someone who loves. Yet, of course, love and like are almost always coterminous. Ironically, then, Jonson's commitment really just emphasizes the impossibility of his situation, and his lack of options.

Epitaph

Generic, but the poem is set in Jonson's time.

Desperate, bitter, mournful.

The protagonist is Ben Jonson.

The major conflict in the poem is between Ben Jonson and himself. Jonson tries to convince himself that he shouldn't feel such intense grief over having lost his son, but he can't bring himself to do so. Ultimately, he comes to see his son's death as a sign of his own impotence, and makes the impossible vow to never again "like too much" someone who he loves. In other words, he accepts that this time, because he both liked and loved his son, he's stuck grieving him, no matter how irrational that response is.

The climax of the poem comes in the middle four lines of the poem, where Jonson articulates his feelings of grief and despair. His conflict with himself leads him to wish to no longer be a father, and likely also causes him to resent God. He presents the world as a miserable place his son was lucky to escape, thus implying that he himself feels trapped. The final four lines enact the resolution of this tense moment, as Jonson bitterly resigns himself to his own impotence.

N/A

N/A

In referring to his son as a loan, Jonson alludes to a long Christian tradition of framing life and death in terms of loans and debt (see Other). Jonson also alludes generally to classical epitaph in his choice to use the form.

N/A

Even though his son is dead, Jonson speaks to him as though he is really present. That isn't exactly personification, but in the last few lines, where Jonson speaks specifically to his son's buried body, rather than to what he would have believed to be his resurrected soul, he does confer personhood on a dead object.

In the last two lines, Jonson states that from now on "all his vows" will be to no longer like those he loves. The use of "all" is hyperbolic, and Jonson will of course have to make other contracts. The exaggeration stresses his feelings of desperation, and his sense that his son's death has completely transformed his world.

N/A