Literature and Legacy

This poem serves as an elegy – essentially, a kind of poetic eulogy, written in honor of a writer who has passed on. As such, like most eulogists, Jonson is highly concerned with what will become of the memory of his subject.

There is a certain irony to reading this theme now. After all, with the benefit of four centuries of hindsight, contemporary readers of Jonson’s lines know the truth of Jonson’s famous line: “He was not of an age but for all time!” (43). Shakespeare’s plays continue to be some of the most widely-read texts ever written, and are foundational parts of almost any English-language literary education. But at the time Jonson was writing, that legacy was far from assured. It is true that Shakespeare was read and admired during his lifetime. He was successful at court, including with Queen Elizabeth I...