Volpone; Or, the Fox

Description

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

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Ben Jonson: A Life

Description

Ben Jonson was the greatest of Shakespeare's contemporaries. His fame rests not only on the numerous plays he had written, but on his achievements over three decades as principal masque-writer to the early Stuart court, where he had worked in creative, if at times stormy, collaboration with Inigo Jones. One of the most accomplished poets of the age, he was--in fact if not in title--the first Poet Laureate in England.

Ian Donaldson's new biography draws on freshly discovered writings by and about Ben Jonson, and locates his work within the social and intellectual contexts of his time. Donaldson depicts a life full of drama. Jonson's early satirical play, The Isle of Dogs, landed him in prison, and brought all theatrical activity in London to a temporary--and very nearly permanent--standstill. He was "almost at the gallows" for killing a fellow actor after a quarrel, and converted to Catholicism while awaiting execution. He supped with the Gunpowder conspirators on the eve of their planned coup at Westminster. After satirizing the Scots in Eastward Ho! he was imprisoned again, and throughout his career was repeatedly interrogated about plays and poems thought to contain seditious or slanderous material. Throughout this lively biography, Donaldson provides the fullest picture available of Jonson's personal, political, spiritual, and intellectual interests, and he insightfully discusses all of Jonson's major poetry and drama, plus some newly discovered works.

Jonson emerges from this study as a more complex and volatile character than previously depicted, and as a writer whose work strikingly foresees the modern age.

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The Alchemist and Other Plays: Volpone, or The Fox; Epicene, or The Silent Woman; The Alchemist; Bartholomew Fair (Oxford World's Classics)

Description

This edition brings together Jonson's four great comedies Volpone, Epicene, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair. The texts of these plays have all been newly edited for this volume, and are presented with modernized spelling. Stage directions have been added to help actors and directors reconstruct the play the way it would have been performed in the seventeenth century, and the introduction, notes, and glossary further bring to life these timeless comedies for the modern reader.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson 7 Volume Set

Description

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson presents Jonson's complete writings in the light of current editorial thinking and recent scholarly interpretation and discovery. It provides a clear sense of the shape, scale, and variety of the entire Jonsonian canon, including plays, court masques and entertainments, poems, prose works and letters. The texts, which are edited in modern spelling, appear in chronological sequence. They have been freshly established from a comprehensive survey of manuscripts and printed sources. Each is accompanied by an introduction containing essential information about its date, sources, and interpretation and is supported by detailed on-page commentary and collation. The Edition presents Jonson's texts in a form which combines thoroughness of explanation with readability. It explicates his works fully in the light of modern scholarship, making them accessible to students, scholars, theatrical practitioners, and anyone wishing to explore the work of Shakespeare's great contemporary.

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Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets (Norton Critical Editions)

Description

This volume offers an abundant and representative selection of the verse of Ben Jonson and the Cavalier poets.

Jonson is represented by a wide selection from the Epigrams, including the mock epic "On the Famous Voyage"; The Forest, complete; extensive selections from Underwood, including such well-known pieces as "A Celebration of Charis" and the Cary-Morison ode, together with the "Epithalamion" on the Weston-Stuart nuptials and "An Execration Upon Vulcan"; and more.

Also included is a copious selection from the works of Richard Corbett, Robert Herrick (eighty-two poems from Hesperides and fifteen from His Noble Numbers), Thomas Carew, James Shirley, Mildmay Fane, Thomas Randolph, Edmund Waller, William Harbington, Sir John Suckling, Sidney Godolphin, William Cartwright, James Graham (Marquis of Montrose), Sir John Denham, Richard Lovelace, Abraham Cowley, Henry Vaughan, and Thomas Stanley.

The spelling and punctuation of the poems have been made consistent with modern practice. These and other alterations are discussed in the Textual Notes. Footnotes serve primarily to gloss unfamiliar terms, to clarify syntax, and to explain allusions to mythological and historical figures and episodes.

Among the critics represented are Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, Edmund Bolton, James Howell, Thomas Fuller, Edward Hyde, Samuel Butler, John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Patrick Cruttwell, Joseph Summers, Earl Miner, Geoffrey Walton, G. A. E. Parfitt, L. A. Beaurline, Stephen Orgel, Ronald Berman, Bruce King, Hugh Richmond, Earl Wasserman, D. C. Allen, T. S. Eliot, and Hugh Maclean.

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The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

Description

One of the greatest English playwrights of the seventeenth century, Ben Jonson was also a deeply influential lyric poet, whose poetry combined classical ideals with a vigorous interest in contemporary life and colloquial language. The "Complete Poems" contains all the volumes of poetry Jonson published in his lifetime - including "Epigrams", "The Forest and Underwoods" - alongside a wide variety of his other poems collected after his death. Ranging from deeply moving pieces such as "On My First Son" and the elegant love lyric "Song to Celia" to brutally satirical poems such as "On Poet-Ape" and the reflective "An Ode to Himself", it offers a powerful celebration of both one man's life, and of an age.

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