For some generation the reputation of Jonson has been carried rather as a liability than as an asset in the balance-sheet of English literature. Jonson has provided no creative stimulus for a very long time; consequently we must look back as far as Dryden—a poetic practitioner who learned from Jonson—before we find a living criticism of Jonson’s work. How in contrast, not with Shakespeare, but with Marlowe, Webster, Donne and Fletcher, Jonson has been paid out with reputation instead of enjoyment. He is no less a poet than these men, but his poetry is of the surface. Poetry of the surface cannot be understood without study; deal with it, is to deal so deliberately that we too must be deliberate, in order to understand. As a writer of power and intelligence, Jonson endeavoured to promulgate, as a formula and programme of reform, what he chose to do himself; and he not unnaturally laid down in abstract theory what is in reality a personal point of view. Organised in three parts, this book on Ben Jonson attempts to portray a complete picture of this great literateur. The critique portion bears extracts from opinions of great men of letters. In nutshell, students, teachers and researchers in English literature will find this book a dependable reference work.
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