Jonson, Horace and the Classical Tradition

The influence of the Roman poet Horace on Ben Jonson has often been acknowledged, but never fully explored. Discussing Jonson's Horatianism in detail, this study also places Jonson's densely intertextual relationship with Horace's Latin text within the broader context of his complex negotiations with a range of other 'rivals' to the Horatian model including Pindar, Seneca, Juvenal and Martial. The new reading of Jonson's classicism that emerges is one founded not upon static imitation, but rather a lively dialogue between competing models - an allusive mode that extends into the seventeenth-century reception of Jonson himself as a latter-day 'Horace'. In the course of this analysis, the book provides fresh readings of many of Jonson's best known poems - including 'Inviting a Friend to Dinner' and 'To Penshurst' - as well as a new perspective on many lesser known pieces, and a range of unpublished manuscript material.

Victoria Moul is Lecture in Latin literature at the University of Cambridge. She is an active two nslator of early modern Latin, contributing to several major recent translation projects. In addition she has published a range of articles on classical material in Jonson, Donne and Milton, and on the reception of Virgil, Horace and Pindar.