Ben Jonson: His Craft and Art

Though he is one of the undisputed giants of English literature, Ben Jonson is known to most people only as the author of one or two masterly plays which regularly appear in the drama repertory. He is much less well-known for his whole oeuvre, which encompasses poetry, criticism, masque-making, and a lifetime of linguistic and lexicographical study.

In this book, first published in 1990, the author presents a comprehensive critical study of the whole of Jonson’s output from his earliest beg...