John Addington Symonds, Ben Jonson (1888)
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Those who have most deeply studied Jonson and most truly felt his power, will hesitate the longest before pronouncing a decisive judgment on the place he occupies among the foremost poets of our literature. One thing, however, can be considered as certain in any estimate which we may form. His throne is not with the Olympians but with the Titans; not with those who share the divine gifts of creative imagination and inevitable instinct, but with those who compel our admiration by their untiring energy and giant strength of intellectual muscle. What we most marvel at in his writings, is the prodigious brain-work of the man, the stuff of constant and inexhaustible cerebration they contain. Moreover, we shall not be far wrong in saying that, of all the English poets of the past, he alone, with Milton and Gray, deserves the name of a great and widely learned scholar.

— John Addington Symonds

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Those who have most deeply studied Jonson and most truly felt his power, will hesitate the longest before pronouncing a decisive judgment on the place he occupies among the foremost poets of our literature. One thing, however, can be considered as certain in any estimate which we may form. His throne is not with the Olympians but with the Titans; not with those who share the divine gifts of creative imagination and inevitable instinct, but with those who compel our admiration by their untiring energy and giant strength of intellectual muscle. What we most marvel at in his writings, is the prodigious brain-work of the man, the stuff of constant and inexhaustible cerebration they contain. Moreover, we shall not be far wrong in saying that, of all the English poets of the past, he alone, with Milton and Gray, deserves the name of a great and widely learned scholar." in the context of "John Addington Symonds, Ben Jonson (1888)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Ben Jonson

About Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson (11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, most famous for his plays Volpone and The Alchemist, his lyrics, his influence on Jacobean and Caroline poets, his theory of humours, his contentious personality, and his friendship and rivalry with William Shakespeare.