Imitation and Praise in the Poems of Ben Jonson

Download or read book Imitation and Praise in the Poems of Ben Jonson written by Richard S. Peterson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first edition of this now-classic text, Richard Peterson offered an important revaluation of the poetry of Ben Jonson and a new appreciation of the way in which the classical doctrine of imitation-the creative use of the thoughts and words of predecessors-permeates and shapes Jonson's critical ideas and his work as a whole. The publication of the original book in 1981 led to a reinterpretation of the poems and a coherent view of Jonson's philosophy; the resulting portrait of Jonson served as a corrective to earlier views based primarily on the satiric poems and plays. This second edition of Imitation and Praise in the Poems of Ben Jonson makes Peterson's important scholarship available to a new generation of scholars and students.