Ben Jonson
Subtitle: poetry and architecture
By: A.W. Johnson.
Series: Oxford English monographs
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Oxford [England]; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 290
Subjects: Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637 -- Knowledge -- Architecture.; Vitruvius Pollio -- Influence.; Architecture and literature -- History -- 17th century.; English literature -- Italian influences.; Aesthetics, Modern -- 17th century.; Aesthetics, British.; Poetics -- History -- 17th century.
Description: Using annotated architectural volumes surviving from Jonson's library as well as his published works, A.W. 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.

He goes on to examine Jonson's encomiastic poetry and the early masques in the light of the latter's interest in architecture, finding in them centred and harmonically proportioned forms which suggest a much closer proximity between Jonson's and Inigo Jones's aesthetic in the early years of the Jacobean period than has formerly been supposed.

This original and ambitious 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-261) and index.