Ben Jonson Folios
The folio collections of Ben Jonson's works published in the seventeenth century were crucial developments in the publication of English literature and English Renaissance drama. The first folio collection, issued in 1616, treated stage plays as serious works of literature instead of popular ephemera—at the time, a controversial position. The 1616 folio stood as a precedent for other play collections that followed—most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623, but also the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, and other collections that were important in preserving the dramatic literature of the age for subsequent generations.
Read more about Ben Jonson Folios: The First Folio, 1616, The Abortive 1631 Addition, The Second Folio, 1640/1, The Third Folio, 1692
Famous quotes containing the words ben jonson, ben and/or jonson:
“The faery beam upon you,
The stars to glisten on you,
A moon of light
In the noon of night
Till the firedrake hath o’er gone you.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“When long ago I saw her ride
Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
The beauty of her country-side
With all youth’s lonely wildness stirred,
She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touch’d it?
Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutch’d it?
Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
Or swan’s down ever?
Or have smelt of the bud of the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)