On My First Daughter By Ben Jonson: Expression Of A Father’S Response To The Death Of His Daughter
‘On My First Daughter’ by Ben Jonson, a poet, essayist and playwright is a tragic epitaph structured as a hybrid sonnet consisting of twelve lines. The poem consistently explores and probes concepts that paint themes of loss, infant mortality, and parental love as it reveals the start of a grieving father’s harrowing road to acceptance having faced the loss of his daughter. Through the structure of the poem itself, Jonson unveils to readers the unforeseen and sudden manner of Mary’s death by cutting-short the conventional fourteen-line sonnet into twelve lines. This illustrates the idea of her life or “youth” being snatched away from her too soon.
The poem is composed of six rhyming couplets, symbolic of the six months Mary lived. It further dwells on her brief life abruptly taken away leaving the traumatized parents to cope. Each couplet consists of two dependent halves, each half representing Mary and Jonson. Daughter and father. The significant takeaway here is the idea that ‘two halves make a whole’ – indicative of the pure and loving bond shared between Jonson and his daughter, the pervasive importance she held in his life as well as his tremendous reliance on Mary. Furthermore, Jonson’s a a b b rhyme scheme is consistent and true to its structure in a time of emotional tumult and personal distress is a tribute to the poet in him. To be able to express a disturbed mind numb from loss and still adhere to the structural norms of poetry writing brings out Jonson’s dominating persona – that of a poet.
At a time of personal bereavement, Jonson’s trauma has bled into poetry. The tortured feelings behind his sudden loss of a young daughter take flight in a short poem evocative of a brief life, a brief and intense paternal bond and the finality of death.
Standing helpless at the foot of his daughter’s grave, using a somber tone, Jonson evokes visual imagery in the first line itself - “Here lies”, bringing out the stark reality and finality of death. By starting the poem at the foot of a grave, Jonson establishes a melancholy setting whilst also instating the somber tone that is recurrent throughout the poem. Moreover, an air of deliberate detachment floats along the first line as Jonson does not mention Mary’s name, in an effort to distance himself from the situation as he faces immense difficulty coming to terms with the harsh reality of his first-born’s death.
As a result, consolation is a consistent theme throughout ‘On My First Daughter’ Jonson explicitly Jonson induces visually dismal images of his daughter’s tombstone which contributes to establishing a melancholy mood amid an already glum atmosphere.
