Ben Jonson in Context

This collection highlights exciting new areas of research related to Ben Jonson, including book history, social history and cultural geography.

In this book, established and emergent Jonson scholars react to major advances in thinking about the writer and his canon of works. Generously illustrated throughout, the first part of the volume considers Jonson's career from biographical, critical, and performance-based angles; the second looks at cultural and historical contexts.Bringing together a group of established and emergent Jonson scholars, this volume reacts to major advances in thinking about the writer and his canon of works. The study is divided into two distinct parts: the first considers the Jonsonian career and output from biographical, critical, and performance-based angles; the second looks at cultural and historical contexts building on rich interdisciplinary work. Social historians work alongside literary critics to provide a diverse and varied account of Jonson. These are less standard surveys of the field than vibrant interventions into current critical debates. The short-essay format of the collection seeks less to harmonize and homogenize than to raise awareness of new avenues of research on Jonson, including studies informed by book history, cultural geography, the law and legal discourse, the history of science and interests in material culture.