Acts of Creation
“On my First Son” considers multiple forms of creation. Most explicitly, the poem ends by describing the dead child as Jonson’s “best piece of poetry.” The statement links the creative endeavor of writing a poem with the father’s creation of his son. Jonson wasn’t totally unique in making that comparison: many other early modern poets compared writing a poem to giving birth, including Milton in his influential defense of free speech, “Areopagitica.” Jonson, however, reverses the conventional comparison, by describing making a son as akin to writing a poem, rather than writing a poem as akin to a woman giving birth. The switch has a somewhat self-deprecating impact. The father’s role in the creation of his son is far less clear than that of the other, which makes Jonson’s control over his poetry seem similarly ambiguous. Furthermore, Jonson’s “best piece of poetry” has just died, suggesting that his other work will be similarly short-lived.
However, Jonson is not the only creator in the poem. The first few lines describe the son as a thing lent to Jonson by God, who has now reclaimed his possession. That’s because for Jonson, God, as the creator of the world, is the ultimate cause of all life on earth. The presence of God-as-creator makes Jonson’s position as creator-poet even more tenuous. After all, he didn’t even really make his son. Ultimately, the poem expresses pessimism about whether people ever have the authority to really act as creators in their own right.
Hatred for the World
“On my First Son” is suffused with a sense of bitterness and resentment directed toward the world. Jonson articulates this most explicitly in the central few lines, when he writes, “Will man lament the state he should envy? / To have so soon ‘scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage, / And if no other misery, yet age?” There are a few things going on here. First, Jonson is articulating a straightforward case for the undesirability of life. He points out that both the world and our own bodies often hurt us, whether through bad luck, ill health, or sinful desires. Even if we escape those dangers, all of us experience the misery of age if we do not die when we are young. The speaker’s extremely negative view of the world not only emphasizes some real problems with being alive, but also speaks to his own state of mind following the death of his son. The tragic loss makes the whole world appear like a bad place. Finally, by arguing that an early death is fortunate, the speaker is trying to convince himself not to lament his son’s death. However, as the boy’s father, he can’t make himself believe his own argument. These few lines thus reinforce the speaker’s sense of bitterness on multiple levels: we see a broad view of the world’s problems, the way grief makes the world seem like a less appealing place, and the inescapable reality of grief itself.
Saying Goodbye
At its core, “On my First Son” is a poem about what it means to lose someone. The poem begins with a “farewell” directed to Jonson’s son. The direct address to the person who has died was somewhat unusual for epitaphs, which were usually intended to commemorate the deceased, and thus directed to living persons seeking to remember them. By writing to his son, Jonson emphasizes that although the boy has died, Jonson still feels a sense of closeness with him. However, that doesn’t diminish the loss caused by his death. In the second line, Jonson writes, “My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.” Jonson means that his mistake was having too high expectations for his son’s future. Those expectations have now been thwarted. The appeal thus emphasizes that in losing his son, Jonson has lost part of the future he imagined. The final lines of the poem build on this theme. The speaker bitterly remarks that from now on, he will vow never to “like too much” those he loves. His son’s loss hurts so much because he both loved the boy and liked him—enjoyed spending time with him, found him a source of joy. Now, his loss has not only specifically deprived Jonson of that companion, but also changed his whole relationship to the world: from this point onward, he vows to never feel the same kind of closeness with anyone else. The poem thus portrays death as kind of chasm, which firmly separates the hopeful past from the bleak future.
