AP English IV BLOCK
Imagery in Ben Jonson’s “Song: To Celia”
Ben Jonson was one of the most popular poets of the Renaissance period in England, and he became famous during his lifetime and was awarded the title of the Poet Laureate of England. He remained remembered as a writer consistent in his inconsistency, and varying in his images as a Jacobean Jonson, Regency Jonson, and Romantic Jonson – a diverse and multi-dimensional product of his age (Lockwood 10). Though Jonson was most famous for his comedies and plays, such as Volpone or the Fox, The Alchemist, etc., he is also credited for writing lyrical poems, one of which, “Song to Celia,” is the best known poem of this poet set to music (Cabanilla et al. 373). This poem has remained the most beloved and appreciated work of his in the genre of poetry, and it is still included in the majority of anthologies and study courses. It represents a monologue of a man to his beloved woman Celia in which he tells her how much he values her love, and how important it is for him as compared to anything else. It is also a query for love from her, since the narrator urges his beloved Celia to show her love to him.
The most interesting about Ben Jonson’s “Song: To Celia” is the mastery use of imagery by the poet; though the words his narrator uses related to love expression are quite conventional (that is, eyes, roses, and wine), there is still much originality regarding his formulations. For instance, the opening lines of the poem are very emotional and lyrical in terms of love expression. They even show a certain degree of despair that a lover feels because of his ambiguity about reciprocity of his passionate feelings, so he urges his beloved woman to show whether she feels the same:
“Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine:
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine” (Jonson 1-4).
In this opening passage, the author shows the whole dedication to his love and his beloved woman, and asks her to dissolve his doubts and to show that he also matters for her. This way, she would win his heart, body, and soul for eternity, and he would need nothing else but her love. Which is notable in this passage, Jonson skillfully uses the metaphor of wine that he requests from his lady; in this case, it serves as a metaphoric substitute for love from her, which he needs badly to satisfy his passion.
Moreover, the imagery of wine and eyes (“drink to me only with thine eyes”, “I’ll not look for wine”) adds to the emotionality and longing of the man in love, which creates a very specific romantic mood of the poem. By referring to wine, the poet implied that love intoxicates people more than alcohol, and he would not need any wine, as he would stay enchanted with his passion. Glancy (120) also claimed that the reference to wine creates the atmosphere of eroticism in the opening lines of the poem, which is expanded in the second stanza. As Jonson showed in these opening lines, a man only needs to know that he is also loved, and the uncertainty about his love is creating an emotional torture for him, which is unbearable with regard to passion that he feels. Thus, the whole opening passage is filled with the imagery of love and longing for a mutual love urged by the speaker.
Though this poem of Jonson is a monologue, the narrator still tries to make an active involvement of his beloved Celia into action; the first line sounds more like an order of an impatient lover who wants Celia to drink him with her eyes. Such an action promises to bring her an immediate rapport, since the man intoxicated with passion and love is ready to do the same and show his dedication to Celia. Thus, by referring to a cup of wine, Jonson wanted to reveal the wish of the man in love to receive a certain pledge from his lady about her emotional commitment to him, as this is what people usually do when sipping wine from their bowls (Perkins 271).
The metaphor of eyes is very powerful in Jonson’s poem, since the romantic lover makes a huge stake on the potential of eyes to communicate his lady’s mood and feelings towards him. The impatient lover relies on his lady’s gaze and expressiveness of her eyes in a hope to see the trace of reciprocal love for him, which may make him happy. Otherwise, if her upbringing does not allow Celia to express her feelings openly through her eyes, the narrator pledges her about any hint that she can make about also having feelings for him – at least leaving a kiss in a cup of wine which he may drink and become intoxicated with the kiss, not wine. The overall atmosphere of suspense regarding love signals that the narrator creates is kept throughout the whole poem, and even intensifies in further lines.
Following the first four lines, the second stanza serves as a very powerful emotional extension of the metaphors of love that Jonson created at the beginning of the poem,
“The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine” (Jonson 5-8).
In these lines, the man in love again compares the sacred drink of love with the gods’ nectar, and when comparing the value of both, he again selects the fruits of Celia’s love to him instead of godly pleasures. This way, the lover communicates the endless preciousness of her love that he feels, and urges Celia for a positive response to his emotions even more.
A reference made to “Jove’s nectar sup” is very interesting from the viewpoint of poetic tradition of the time; according to Perkins (271), Jove stands for the name of Jupiter, the lord of classical gods and a very important symbol in the secular poetry of the Elizabethan era. Therefore, the lover denying the drink of nectar from Jupiter’s cup is obviously mad about his Celia, as he refuses the highest virtue a poet would ever find. Such a comparison shows that not only wine of the mortal people, but also the wine (nectar) of gods cannot substitute what Celia means for the man in love, which shows the admiration and the level of awe that he has for this mortal woman. Such an attitude creates an impression that Jonson elevated the meaning of Celia to that of gods, and even higher than gods, to show the immense appreciation that love could give to mortal women, and to the ways in which men in love could court their ladies and show how much they meant for them.
The next four lines contain a mention of a wreath of roses sent by the lover to his lady, which mean not his tribute to her beauty but something greater to which he implies,
“I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee,
As giving hope that there
It could not withered be” (Jonson 9-12). In such a context, one may suggest that Jonson created an impression of Celia’s power over flowers, which implies her supernatural power assigned to her by the man in love. According to his opinion, flowers will never wither in the presence of Celia, and will always remain fresh and beautiful as she is. Celia’s beauty cannot withstand anything ugly next to her, and everything in her proximity has to be perfect. With these words, Celia’s admirer could have meant that he strove to be next to her for survival, as living without her love may be as impossible as the roses’ eternal blossom without her attention.
The final portion of the poem supports the supernatural, godly powers that Jonson earlier assigned to Celia: her admirer claims that only her breath makes roses eternally growing and smelling, thus revealing her magic power over nature:
“But thou thereto didst only breathe
And sent it back to me;
Since when it grows and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee” (Jonson 13-16).
With the help of such powerful attributes and comparing Celia and her virtues to those of gods and even exceeding those of Gods, Jonson created a magic atmosphere of a courtly and elegant praise to a woman that caught a gentleman’s attention and aroused passion in him.
Thus, the overall mood of the poem fits what Harp and Stewart (169) described as a “delicate courtly compliment” to a woman and her power over a man in love. Moreover, as recognized by Carney (210), Jonson may be credited as a person who with stood competition with such giants of Elizabethan-age literature as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and his stylistic influence in poetry lasted for many generations of poets. As one can see from the powerful imagery created by Jonson in his famous poem “Song: To Celia”, this poet was indeed a daring and talented personality whose work surpassed his time and instilled his name in the British and global poetic tradition for many centuries to come.
Works Cited
Cabanilla, Q. Josefina, Rebecca D. Alcantara, and Alejandro J. Casambre. World Literature. Quezon City, the Philippines: Goodwill Trading Co.
Carney, Jo Eldridge. Renaissance & Reformation 1500-1620: A Bibliographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Print.
Glancy, F. Ruth. Thematic Guide to British Poetry. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. Print.
Harp, Richard, and Stanley Stewart. The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Jonson, Ben. “Song: To Celia.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 23. Detroit, MI: Gale Publishing, 2006. 270-271. Print.
Lockwood, Tom. Ben Jonson in the Romantic Age. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.
Perkins, J. Gwyn. “Song: To Celia.” Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 23. Detroit, MI: Gale Publishing, 2006. 269-285. Print
