English playwright and poet who was Shakespeare's greatest contemporary — his comedies (Volpone, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair) satirize human greed and folly with unsentimental ferocity — and whose literary criticism and relationship with Shakespeare (admired him as a friend, criticized his carelessness) defines the Elizabethan-Jacobean literary world.
Created the 'comedy of humours' — characters dominated by a single overriding passion (greed, jealousy, ambition) — and provided the critical framework through which Shakespeare was first evaluated, his famous remark ('He was not of an age, but for all time') establishing Shakespeare's canonical status.
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