Ben Jonson: Poet
Pritchard, William H., The Hudson Review
Perhaps the best opening to one of T. S. Eliot's essays occurs in "Ben Jonson," a writer, Eliot says, "whose reputation has been of the most deadly kind that can be compelled upon the memory of a great poet":
To be universally accepted; to be damned by the praise that quenches all desire to read the book; to be afflicted by the imputation of the virtues which excite the least pleasure; and to be read only by historians and antiquaries - this is the most perfect conspiracy of approval.
Six years after Eliot's essay, the great Oxford edition of Jonson's works, edited by Charles Herford and Percy Simpson, began to appear: it would be completed only in 1952. Meanwhile, over …
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Publication information:
Article title: Ben Jonson: Poet.
Contributors: Pritchard, William H. - Author.
Journal title: The Hudson Review.
Volume: 65.
Issue: 1
Publication date: Spring 2012.
Page number: 43+.
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