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Last updated: October 9, 2019


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1629 - Ben Jonson - Ode (to himself)

In Ode (to Himself), Jonson singles out Shakespeare's Pericles as the prime example of a more general evil, where a lesser writer recycles the work of a greater, and proceeds to represent it as his own. The stanza concerning Pericles is as follows:

    No doubt some mouldy tale
    Like PERICLES, and stale
    As the shrieve’s crusts, and misty as his fish-
    Scraps, out of every dish
    Thrown forth, and rak’t into the common-tub,
    May keep up the play-club:
    There sweepings do as well
    As the best-ordered meale.
    For who the relish of these guests will fit,
    Needs set them but the almes-basket of wit.

Though a later play, probably first performed in 1608, and one of the most popular, Pericles was not included in the First Folio of 1623. Whether Jonson managed this compilation or not, he would certainly have approved of its exclusion seven years earlier.

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