Ben Jonson (Critical Survey of Drama)

Other Literary Forms

Ben Jonson was a masterful poet as well as a dramatist. His poetry, with some justification, has the reputation of being remote from modern readers. A dedicated classicist, Jonson emphasized clarity of form and phrase over expression of emotion, and many of his poems seem to be exercises in cleverness and wit rather than attempts to express an idea or image well. Others of his poems, however, retain their power and vision: “To Celia,” for example, has given the English language the phrase “Drink to me only with thine eyes.”

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