Ben Jonson: Poetry and Architecture (Oxford English Monographs) (Writers and their Work)

by Anthony Johnson

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Although Ben Jonson's association with architecture is well known, comparatively little research has been devoted to the influence of architectural thinking on his literary work. This book sets out to explore the possibilities suggested by such an interrelationship. Using annotated architectural volumes surviving from Jonson's library as well as his published works, Anthony Johnson surveys the evidence for Jonson's knowledge of, and theoretical agreement with, the architectural principles enunciated in the "De Architectura Libri Decem" of the Roman architect, Vitruvius. The book goes on to examine Jonson's poetry and the early masques in the light of his interest in architecture, finding in them forms which suggest a much closer proximity between Jonson's and Inigo Jones' aesthetic in the early years of the Jacobean period than has formerly been supposed. The study argues that Jonson employed a form of literary Vitruvianism which was a potent force in the shaping of the early masques of his Catholic period, and was to remain an active influence on poetic composition throughout the succeeding century.
  • ISBN10 0198117590
  • ISBN13 9780198117599
  • Publish Date January 1993
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 18 January 1999
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Oxford University Press
  • Imprint Clarendon Press
  • Edition Annotated edition
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 309
  • Language English