Jonson came to be presented as pedantic, ponderous, and ultimately outclassed by the dramatist who was his main contemporary rival, whose early reputation he was instrumental in creating. To account for the much-reduced presence Jonson occupies in the ongoing fictionalization of the English Renaissance, the author outlines the development of a pseudo-biographical narrative of Jonson’s life which evolved over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in relation to the emerging narrative of Shakespeare’s. Despite the wealth of documentary evidence for Jonson’s dramatic and fractious biography, its particular richness has rarely captured the imagination of contemporary authors. This article investigates the cultural assumptions which underpin five twentieth- and twenty-first century fictional depictions of Ben Jonson. In this paper I take a look at the various uses the sonnets have been put to, primarily in books, television, and film, and come to some conclusions regarding their success in remediation. However, they represent a gold mine of untold riches, especially in terms of biography, which has yet to be sufficiently tapped.
Whereas the plays have long been acknowledged as a rich source of inspiration-both serious and parodic-by artists and auteurs, ranging in kind from novelist James Joyce to dramatist Tom Stoppard to comedian Ben Elton, the poems have received less scrutiny in this regard. In the four hundred years since Shakespeare's death, they have found their way into a variety of media, including music, drama, books, television, and film.
For many, they represent the ultimate statement on love. They have been set to music, they have been quoted by politicians, they have been used as wedding vows, and they have appeared on greeting cards.
Shakespeare's Sonnets, too, have been put to many uses over the years. Adaptation of Shakespeare's plays has been part of his legacy from the beginning, as works by artists such as Nahum Tate, Henry Purcell, and John Dryden can attest.
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