Title: The women of Ben Jonson's poetry
Subtitle: female representations in the non-dramatic verse
First published: 1995
Description: Ben Jonson (1572-1637) is recognized as one of the major poets and dramatists of his time. Yet this is the first study to look specifically at the role of women in his poetry. Barbara Smith challenges previously held conceptions of Jonson as a misogynist who upheld the patronage system that allowed him to work.

Through detailed examination of his poetic structures, the influence of the works of Juvenal, Martial and Horace, and Jonson's attitudes to his own female patrons, the Countess of Bedford and Lady Mary Wroth, The Women of Ben Jonson's Poetry demonstrates how seventeenth-century cultural values and ideas of gender are both supported and subverted in the poems.

'If we "survey Jonson in his works and know him there", we shall find the independence of spirit and originality that made him a rarity in his time and ours.'.
Subjects: History and criticism, History, Classical influences, Authors and patrons, Poetic works, English Verse satire, Women in literature, English Laudatory poetry, Sex role in literature, Misogyny in literature, Praise in literature, Blame in literature, English poetry, Characters, Literary patrons, Women, Jonson, ben, 1573-1637, Femmes dans la littérature, Écrivains et mécènes, Histoire, Poésie satirique anglaise, Histoire et critique, Poésie anglaise, Influence ancienne, Mécènes de la littérature, Rôle selon le sexe dans la littérature, Misogynie dans la littérature, Éloges dans la littérature, Blâme dans la littérature, POETRY, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Criticism and interpretation
Places: Great Britain, England
People: Ben Jonson (1573?-1637)
Time periods: 17th century
LC classification: PR2642.W6 S63 1995