Overview

The first monograph to address Ben Jonson’s thought on the visual arts, Image, Word, and Catholicism in Ben Jonson’s Works: Curating Pictures, shows how Jonson placed a high value on the visual arts and the extent to which he designed his poetics around visual frames. Until this point, scholarship has been oddly divided on these points. Addressing a wider range of evidence than previous studies, Image, Word, and Catholicism in Ben Jonson’s Works both resolves this division and explains it by surveying the influence of Catholic ideas Jonson encountered during the early part of his literary career (1598–1610), while he was a formal member of the Roman Church. Examining Jonson’s works alongside the writings of Catholic writers such as Thomas Palmer, Thomas Wright, Robert Southwell, and Ignatius of Loyola, this work proposes a fresh sketch of Jonson’s nuanced visual imagination and suggests ways to situate his poetry within this important context.

Full Product Details

Author:   Steven Hrdlicka
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9781032865287

ISBN 10:   1032865288
Pages:   204
Publication Date:   29 May 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: “Pray thee take care, that tak’st my book in hand”: Ben Jonson as Curator Chapter One: Ut Pictura Poesis: The Visual Arts and Catholic Theology in Jonson’s Works Chapter Two: Ben Jonson, Thomas Palmer, and Jesuit Spirituality: Emblematizing Nature in “To Penshurst” and “To Sir Robert Wroth” Chapter Three: The Influence of Robert Southwell on Ben Jonson’s Poetry of Love and Devotion Chapter Four: Curating Jonson’s Pictures of Lives, Deeds, and the Image of God Chapter Five: Jonson’s Metaphysical Poetry and Catholic Theology in “To Celia,” “On My First Son,” and the Portrait of Venetia Digby as Prudence Conclusion: Anxiety and Acceptance: Visual Imagination and the Senses in Bartholomew Fair, Volpone, and The Alchemist Beyond the Gutenberg Galaxy Postscript

Reviews

""This book, brimming with citations to other relevant scholarship, deals with an important but often-neglected topic: Ben Jonson’s poetry. While doing so, the book raises various intriguing issues, especially concerning the potential connections between that poetry and Jonson’s Catholicism and also the connections between that poetry and the visual arts."" Robert C. Evans, Senior Editor of The Ben Jonson Journal, USA

""This book, brimming with citations to other relevant scholarship, deals with an important but often-neglected topic: Ben Jonson’s poetry. While doing so, the book raises various intriguing issues, especially concerning the potential connections between that poetry and Jonson’s Catholicism and also the connections between that poetry and the visual arts."" Robert C. Evans, senior editor of The Ben Jonson Journal, USA

Author Information

Steven Hrdlicka studied with Richard Harp at UNLV. He teaches English and Humanities at Great Basin College in Elko, Nevada, and has published articles and book chapters on Shakespeare, Jonson, Milton, the Irish Painter Jack B. Yeats, and Tolkien. His scholarship has appeared in The Arden Shakespeare, Religion and the Arts, The Ben Jonson Journal, Gale Researcher, and Norton. He is co-editor of Quidditas, a journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies

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