SOURCE: “‘At Bottom a Criticism of Life’: Suckling and the Poetry of Low Seriousness,” in Classic and Cavalier: Essays on Jonson and the Sons of Ben, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982, pp. 217-41.

In the following essay, Clayton endeavors to redeem Suckling from usual critical consideration as a minor poet by exploring his irony and wit, as well as the depth of his poetic criticism of life.

“Natural, easy Suckling”—with two lines of “Out upon it, I have loved / Three whole days together” and two of “Why so pale and wan, fond lover? / Prithee why so pale?”—is so apt and usual an opening for a discussion of Suckling that I have now used it myself, naturally. But the phrase is not my focus, though it is tempting. In fact, it is remarkable and somewhat disquieting how much functional—and often reductive—literary history and criticism can be...