Some aspects of the irreversible dynamics of a generalized Jaynes– Cummings model are addressed. By working in the dressed-state representation, it is possible to split the dynamics of the entanglement and coherence. The exact solution of the master equation in the case of a high-Q cavity with atomic decay is found. Effects of the atomic spontaneous decay on the temporal evolution of partial entropies of the atom or the field and the total entropy as a quantitative measure entanglement are elucidated. The degree of entanglement, through the sum of the negative eigenvalues of the partially transposed density matrix and the negative mutual information has been studied and compared with other measures.