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Song: To Celia (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)

At a glance:

The Poem

“Song: To Celia” is a sixteen-line iambic poem written in four quatrains. The content of the poem divides after the second quatrain to form two octets representing two distinct scenes. The poem is the third of three songs addressed to Celia that are collected in The Forest. The other two, “Come my Celia” and “Kiss me, sweet,” first appeared in Ben Jonson’s play Volpone (1605).

“Song: To Celia” is Jonson’s reworking of five different passages of prose from the Greek sophist writer Philostratus (third century c.e.). The lyric...

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