An English playwright, poet, and literary critic, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularized the comedy of humours, a genre of comedy based on characters who each show one or two overriding traits based on the dominance of corresponding bodily humours. Known for satirical plays and for his lyric poetry, he is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I. Among his works are the dramas Every Man and his Humour (1598); Every Man Out of His Humour (1599); The Fountaine of Selfe-love; or, Cynthias Revells (1600); Poetaster (1601); Sejanus his Fall (1603); The Mask of Blackness (1605); Volpone; or, the Foxe (1605-6); Epicene, or the Silent Woman (1609-10); The Alchemist (1610); Love Restored (1612); Bartholomew Fayre (1614); The Devil is an Ass (1616); Mercurie Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court (1616); The Staple of News (1626); The Magnetic Lady (1631); and A Tale of a Tub (1633).