Although Ben Jonson is still best known as a dramatist, his significance as a poet is hard to overestimate. His influence helped transform English verse. His "plain style" made him a crucial figure in a central tradition, but his deceptively complex works reward close reading. Sophisticated, self-conscious, and strongly influenced by the Greek and Roman classics, his writing nonetheless rarely seems foreign or artificial. His vigorous and colloquial style exemplifies both wide reading and a deep interest in "reality." He moved as comfortably through books as through London's streets and taverns--a man of learning who never lost touch with life. A social poet especially concerned with ethics, he wrote lasting poems that also vividly reflect their era.

Jonson achieved much despite early disadvantages. Notes taken by his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden in 1618-1619 reveal that Jonson's father had "Losed all his estate under Queen Marie, [and,] having...