Ben Jonson’s “To Penshurst” stands as the exemplar of the small, but important, country house poem genre, particularly popular in England during the first half of the seventeenth century. In 1616 Jonson published a folio of
Works of Benjamin Jonson, a compilation of his drama, masques, and a collection of poetry titled
The Forest. The second poem in
The Forest, “To Penshurst”, praises the estate of Robert Sidney, a member of an aristocratic and literary family of writers and patrons, and presents a world that functions free of struggle or even labour. In “To Penshurst” the animals willingly and happily sacrifice themselves for the feast, to which everyone is invited: “all come in, the farmer and the clown” (line 48). Guided by a framework of symbiotic relationships,…
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Citation: Beskin, Anna . "To Penshurst". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 March 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34873, accessed 21 November 2024.]
