Ben Jonson in Context

Description

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.

Julie Sanders is Professor of English Literature and Drama at the University of Nottingham. She is the author of Ben Jonson's Theatrical Republics (1998) and has recently edited The New Inn for The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson.

'... the short-essay format works successfully, making the experience of reading the book through something of a pleasant and informative addiction.' Notes and Queries