Epigrams and the Forest

Ben Jonson is overshadowed as a dramatist by Shakespeare, his great contemporary. As a poet, however, he stands high. His polished urbanity, direct expression and classicism have been especially valued in modern times. T.S. Eliot says Jonson "incorporated his erudition into his sensibility", creatively assimilating Horace, Martial and Juvenal into his poetry and hence into English literature. Richard Dutton's introduction illuminates the structure and context of Jonson's "Epigrams" and "The Forest". Dutton shows them to be carefully structured poem sequences that display Jonson's command of poetic forms and involve the reader in evaluating a range of shifting perspectives. Jonson's recurrent theme, the nature of truth and virtue, is as pertinent to day as it was in his own time.