David McKitterick
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197262788
- eISBN:
- 9780191754210
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262788.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
Don McKenzie, Professor of English Language and Literature at Victoria University of Wellington and later Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism at Oxford, argued for the place of ...
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Don McKenzie, Professor of English Language and Literature at Victoria University of Wellington and later Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism at Oxford, argued for the place of bibliography at the centre of literary and historical understanding. The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712: a bibliographical study (1966) led to a transformation of bibliographical studies. McKenzie edited the plays of Congreve and was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1980 while he was still living in New Zealand. After moving to Oxford, he was elected Fellow in 1986. Obituary by David McKitterick FBA.Less
Don McKenzie, Professor of English Language and Literature at Victoria University of Wellington and later Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism at Oxford, argued for the place of bibliography at the centre of literary and historical understanding. The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712: a bibliographical study (1966) led to a transformation of bibliographical studies. McKenzie edited the plays of Congreve and was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1980 while he was still living in New Zealand. After moving to Oxford, he was elected Fellow in 1986. Obituary by David McKitterick FBA.
Gilli Bush-Bailey
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719072505
- eISBN:
- 9781781701935
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719072505.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This book challenges the traditional boundaries that have separated the histories of the first actresses and the early female playwright, bringing the approaches of new histories and historiography ...
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This book challenges the traditional boundaries that have separated the histories of the first actresses and the early female playwright, bringing the approaches of new histories and historiography to bear on old stories to make alternative connections between women working in the business of theatre. Drawing from feminist cultural materialist theories and historiographies, it analyses the collaboration between the actresses Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle and women playwrights such as Aphra Behn and Mary Pix, tracing a line of influence from the time of the first theatres royal to the rebellion that resulted in the creation of a players' co-operative. This is a story about public and private identity fuelling profit at the box office and gossip on the streets, investigating how women's on- and off-stage personae fed each other in the emerging commercial world of the business of theatre. Employing the narrative strategy of the micro-history, it offers a fresh approach to the history of women, seeing their neglected plays in the context of performance. Competition with the patent house resulted in a dirty tricks campaign that saw William Congreve supporting the female rebels or, as this book suggests, being supported by them. By combining detailed analysis of selected plays within the broader context of a playhouse managed by its leading actresses, the book challenges the received historical and literary canons, including a radical solution to the mysterious identity of the anonymous playwright ‘Ariadne’. It is a story of female collaboration and influence.Less
This book challenges the traditional boundaries that have separated the histories of the first actresses and the early female playwright, bringing the approaches of new histories and historiography to bear on old stories to make alternative connections between women working in the business of theatre. Drawing from feminist cultural materialist theories and historiographies, it analyses the collaboration between the actresses Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle and women playwrights such as Aphra Behn and Mary Pix, tracing a line of influence from the time of the first theatres royal to the rebellion that resulted in the creation of a players' co-operative. This is a story about public and private identity fuelling profit at the box office and gossip on the streets, investigating how women's on- and off-stage personae fed each other in the emerging commercial world of the business of theatre. Employing the narrative strategy of the micro-history, it offers a fresh approach to the history of women, seeing their neglected plays in the context of performance. Competition with the patent house resulted in a dirty tricks campaign that saw William Congreve supporting the female rebels or, as this book suggests, being supported by them. By combining detailed analysis of selected plays within the broader context of a playhouse managed by its leading actresses, the book challenges the received historical and literary canons, including a radical solution to the mysterious identity of the anonymous playwright ‘Ariadne’. It is a story of female collaboration and influence.
Jane Spencer
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199262960
- eISBN:
- 9780191718731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262960.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter shows how ideas of literary patrilineage were affected by the hierarchized and gendered divide between spirit and matter: with spirit associated with masculinity and paternity and matter ...
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This chapter shows how ideas of literary patrilineage were affected by the hierarchized and gendered divide between spirit and matter: with spirit associated with masculinity and paternity and matter with femininity and maternity. Through a case study of Dryden and his relation to three filial figures: his son John; his chosen poetic heir, William Congreve; and his later literary son, Alexander Pope, it demonstrates the importance of a disembodied and metaphorical father-son relationship to the creation of poetic lineage, and indicates the problematic nature of the relationship between paternal mentoring and literary inheritance. The chapter further argues that the exclusivity of the father-son relationship as a model for literary inheritance was challenged by the advent of women writers claiming metaphorical daughterhood to literary fathers. This phenomenon is examined through a case study of Samuel Johnson's mentoring of Frances Burney and the father-daughter relationship established between them.Less
This chapter shows how ideas of literary patrilineage were affected by the hierarchized and gendered divide between spirit and matter: with spirit associated with masculinity and paternity and matter with femininity and maternity. Through a case study of Dryden and his relation to three filial figures: his son John; his chosen poetic heir, William Congreve; and his later literary son, Alexander Pope, it demonstrates the importance of a disembodied and metaphorical father-son relationship to the creation of poetic lineage, and indicates the problematic nature of the relationship between paternal mentoring and literary inheritance. The chapter further argues that the exclusivity of the father-son relationship as a model for literary inheritance was challenged by the advent of women writers claiming metaphorical daughterhood to literary fathers. This phenomenon is examined through a case study of Samuel Johnson's mentoring of Frances Burney and the father-daughter relationship established between them.
Richard Scholar
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199274406
- eISBN:
- 9780191706448
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199274406.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter examines uses of the je-ne-sais-quoi in polite literature, particularly Bouhours and his contemporary the Chevalier de Méré, to refer to an imperceptible sign of social quality and ...
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This chapter examines uses of the je-ne-sais-quoi in polite literature, particularly Bouhours and his contemporary the Chevalier de Méré, to refer to an imperceptible sign of social quality and distinction. It argues that the ruling class under Louis XIV in the third quarter of the 17th-century comes to cultivate ever subtler signs of cultural quality in order to distinguish itself from those it wishes to exclude, and that the je-ne-sais-quoi encapsulates this élitist process. The polite circle makes and distributes the je-ne-sais-quoi as an inherent quality among its members and their works. The term settles in late 17th-century culture, neither as a force of nature nor as a stroke of passion, but as a collective fabrication. It lends itself, as a result, to ridicule and satire in Congreve, Fielding, and other English authors of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as their French contemporaries.Less
This chapter examines uses of the je-ne-sais-quoi in polite literature, particularly Bouhours and his contemporary the Chevalier de Méré, to refer to an imperceptible sign of social quality and distinction. It argues that the ruling class under Louis XIV in the third quarter of the 17th-century comes to cultivate ever subtler signs of cultural quality in order to distinguish itself from those it wishes to exclude, and that the je-ne-sais-quoi encapsulates this élitist process. The polite circle makes and distributes the je-ne-sais-quoi as an inherent quality among its members and their works. The term settles in late 17th-century culture, neither as a force of nature nor as a stroke of passion, but as a collective fabrication. It lends itself, as a result, to ridicule and satire in Congreve, Fielding, and other English authors of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as their French contemporaries.
Paulina Kewes
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184683
- eISBN:
- 9780191674334
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184683.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Drama
This book studies the cultural and economic status of playwriting in the later 17th and early 18th centuries, and argues that the period was a decisive one in the transition from Renaissance ...
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This book studies the cultural and economic status of playwriting in the later 17th and early 18th centuries, and argues that the period was a decisive one in the transition from Renaissance conceptions of authorship towards modern ones. In Shakespeare's time, creative originality and independence of voice had been little prized. Playwrights had appropriated materials from earlier writings with little censure, while the practice of collaboration among dramatists had been taken for granted. The book demonstrates that, in the decades following the Restoration, those attitudes were challenged by new conceptions of dramatic art, which required authors to be the sole begetters of their works. This book explores a series of developments in the theatrical marketplace that increased both the rewards and the prestige of the dramatist, and shows the Restoration period to have been one of serious and animated debate about the methods of playwriting. Against that background, the book offers a fresh account of the formation of the canon of English drama, revealing how the moderns — Dryden, Otway, Lee, Behn, and then their successors Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar — acquired an esteem equal, even superior, to their illustrious predecessors Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher.Less
This book studies the cultural and economic status of playwriting in the later 17th and early 18th centuries, and argues that the period was a decisive one in the transition from Renaissance conceptions of authorship towards modern ones. In Shakespeare's time, creative originality and independence of voice had been little prized. Playwrights had appropriated materials from earlier writings with little censure, while the practice of collaboration among dramatists had been taken for granted. The book demonstrates that, in the decades following the Restoration, those attitudes were challenged by new conceptions of dramatic art, which required authors to be the sole begetters of their works. This book explores a series of developments in the theatrical marketplace that increased both the rewards and the prestige of the dramatist, and shows the Restoration period to have been one of serious and animated debate about the methods of playwriting. Against that background, the book offers a fresh account of the formation of the canon of English drama, revealing how the moderns — Dryden, Otway, Lee, Behn, and then their successors Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar — acquired an esteem equal, even superior, to their illustrious predecessors Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This book traces patterns of diversity that gradually shift in their composition and proportions, and a number of interlinked motifs become evident. It is noteworthy that, after 1688, contented Whigs ...
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This book traces patterns of diversity that gradually shift in their composition and proportions, and a number of interlinked motifs become evident. It is noteworthy that, after 1688, contented Whigs such as Thomas Shadwell and Libber resurrect fixity of place as an important moral and social symbol, and that, partly in consequence, the stranger once more becomes a dramatically potent figure. It is equally noteworthy, however, that it was not only melancholy Jacobites such as John Dryden who continued the portrayal of human dislocation: it is a fundamental state in the plays of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh, and Congreve more than anyone else inherits the youthful Dryden's interest in the isolated consciousness. This is not a book on the diverse and changing relationship between consciousness and the exterior world in Restoration drama, but it does assume that the dramatists' creative personalities are fundamentally influenced by their interpretation of this relationship, in all its multitude of implications.Less
This book traces patterns of diversity that gradually shift in their composition and proportions, and a number of interlinked motifs become evident. It is noteworthy that, after 1688, contented Whigs such as Thomas Shadwell and Libber resurrect fixity of place as an important moral and social symbol, and that, partly in consequence, the stranger once more becomes a dramatically potent figure. It is equally noteworthy, however, that it was not only melancholy Jacobites such as John Dryden who continued the portrayal of human dislocation: it is a fundamental state in the plays of William Congreve and John Vanbrugh, and Congreve more than anyone else inherits the youthful Dryden's interest in the isolated consciousness. This is not a book on the diverse and changing relationship between consciousness and the exterior world in Restoration drama, but it does assume that the dramatists' creative personalities are fundamentally influenced by their interpretation of this relationship, in all its multitude of implications.
Derek Hughes
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119746
- eISBN:
- 9780191671203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119746.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
After the Revolution, there was an appreciable revival in the demand for new plays: between November 1688 and the opening of the actors' breakaway company in April 1695 there were forty-six known ...
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After the Revolution, there was an appreciable revival in the demand for new plays: between November 1688 and the opening of the actors' breakaway company in April 1695 there were forty-six known premieres. There was also a boost in quality, associated with the arrival of William Congreve, the maturing of Thomas Southerne, and the brief returns of Thomas Shadwell and of John Dryden, stripped of his laureateship and short of money. Dryden's four last plays contain two of his finest (and one of his worst), and respond to the deposition of James II with detailed studies of displacement and exile. Nevertheless, there were clear and quite rapid breaks with earlier drama. However, tyranny was now more easily subject to justice, and in both tragedy and comedy justice was frequently freed from the epistemological and linguistic problems that had bedevilled it in the 1670s.Less
After the Revolution, there was an appreciable revival in the demand for new plays: between November 1688 and the opening of the actors' breakaway company in April 1695 there were forty-six known premieres. There was also a boost in quality, associated with the arrival of William Congreve, the maturing of Thomas Southerne, and the brief returns of Thomas Shadwell and of John Dryden, stripped of his laureateship and short of money. Dryden's four last plays contain two of his finest (and one of his worst), and respond to the deposition of James II with detailed studies of displacement and exile. Nevertheless, there were clear and quite rapid breaks with earlier drama. However, tyranny was now more easily subject to justice, and in both tragedy and comedy justice was frequently freed from the epistemological and linguistic problems that had bedevilled it in the 1670s.
Margaret J. M. Ezell
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198183112
- eISBN:
- 9780191847158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198183112.003.0022
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
The final decade of the century saw changes and challenges to the London commercial stage, including Jeremy Collier’s attack on it for profanity and immorality. Dramatists including Dryden, Congreve, ...
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The final decade of the century saw changes and challenges to the London commercial stage, including Jeremy Collier’s attack on it for profanity and immorality. Dramatists including Dryden, Congreve, and Southerne defended their writings as promoting good morality, while a group of female dramatists comprising Mary Pix, Delarivier Manley, and Catharine Trotter became a target of satire, referred to as the ‘Female Wits’. Audiences were increasingly interested in new forms of plays called ‘operas’ that required more singers, dancers and stage effects.Less
The final decade of the century saw changes and challenges to the London commercial stage, including Jeremy Collier’s attack on it for profanity and immorality. Dramatists including Dryden, Congreve, and Southerne defended their writings as promoting good morality, while a group of female dramatists comprising Mary Pix, Delarivier Manley, and Catharine Trotter became a target of satire, referred to as the ‘Female Wits’. Audiences were increasingly interested in new forms of plays called ‘operas’ that required more singers, dancers and stage effects.
Margaret J. M. Ezell
- Published in print:
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- eISBN:
- 9780191849572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780191849572.003.0016
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
The 1680s and 1690s saw continued interest in fiction, including translations of important continental works by Rabelais and Cervantes. Among popular forms, fictions purporting to be ‘real’ letters ...
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The 1680s and 1690s saw continued interest in fiction, including translations of important continental works by Rabelais and Cervantes. Among popular forms, fictions purporting to be ‘real’ letters and life histories flourished. Several dramatists used the plots found in popular novels as the basis for stage productions, including adaptations of Behn’s fictions, such as Oroonoko by Thomas Southerne. Behn set several of her short fictions in continental nunneries with scandalous heroines, while other fiction writers insisted on a didactic message. Dampier’s travel narratives created imitations and there were multiple versions of the animal fables by Aesop.Less
The 1680s and 1690s saw continued interest in fiction, including translations of important continental works by Rabelais and Cervantes. Among popular forms, fictions purporting to be ‘real’ letters and life histories flourished. Several dramatists used the plots found in popular novels as the basis for stage productions, including adaptations of Behn’s fictions, such as Oroonoko by Thomas Southerne. Behn set several of her short fictions in continental nunneries with scandalous heroines, while other fiction writers insisted on a didactic message. Dampier’s travel narratives created imitations and there were multiple versions of the animal fables by Aesop.
Margaret J. M. Ezell
- Published in print:
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- eISBN:
- 9780191849572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780191849572.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Many poets and dramatists, such as John Dryden and the Earl of Roscommon, included literary criticism, or a critique of literary values, as part of their publications. Criticism took the form of ...
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Many poets and dramatists, such as John Dryden and the Earl of Roscommon, included literary criticism, or a critique of literary values, as part of their publications. Criticism took the form of essays, verses, dialogues, and epistles. Biblical exegesis and commentary also offered the tools of literary assessment. Classical literature was viewed as a benchmark for the evaluation of contemporary poetry and drama by Dryden, Congreve, and Thomas Rymer. Essayists including William Temple and William Wotton debated the relative merits of classical and continental models and rules in a discussion of the Ancients and the Moderns.Less
Many poets and dramatists, such as John Dryden and the Earl of Roscommon, included literary criticism, or a critique of literary values, as part of their publications. Criticism took the form of essays, verses, dialogues, and epistles. Biblical exegesis and commentary also offered the tools of literary assessment. Classical literature was viewed as a benchmark for the evaluation of contemporary poetry and drama by Dryden, Congreve, and Thomas Rymer. Essayists including William Temple and William Wotton debated the relative merits of classical and continental models and rules in a discussion of the Ancients and the Moderns.
Margaret J. M. Ezell
- Published in print:
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- eISBN:
- 9780191849572
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780191849572.003.0021
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
The London theatres in the first decade of the eighteenth century experienced changes in the types of entertainment offered and in their staging. Many of the stars of the previous decades including ...
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The London theatres in the first decade of the eighteenth century experienced changes in the types of entertainment offered and in their staging. Many of the stars of the previous decades including Thomas Betterton, Elizabeth Barry, and Anne Bracegirdle retired from the stage. New productions emphasized music and dancing; so popular was musical drama that a public competition was held to create the music for Congreve’s libretto The Judgment of Paris. Foreign singers, especially from Italy, were often paid higher salaries than English actors, leading to tensions, and while operas sung in Italian were very popular with audiences, critics such as Joseph Addison writing in the Spectator deplored the use of spectacle and music over script and moral. One of the most popular new playwrights of the decade was Susanna Centlivre.Less
The London theatres in the first decade of the eighteenth century experienced changes in the types of entertainment offered and in their staging. Many of the stars of the previous decades including Thomas Betterton, Elizabeth Barry, and Anne Bracegirdle retired from the stage. New productions emphasized music and dancing; so popular was musical drama that a public competition was held to create the music for Congreve’s libretto The Judgment of Paris. Foreign singers, especially from Italy, were often paid higher salaries than English actors, leading to tensions, and while operas sung in Italian were very popular with audiences, critics such as Joseph Addison writing in the Spectator deplored the use of spectacle and music over script and moral. One of the most popular new playwrights of the decade was Susanna Centlivre.
Karin Kukkonen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190634766
- eISBN:
- 9780190634780
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190634766.003.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This chapter outlines the role of neoclassical poetics at the time in the eighteenth century when the novel emerged as a new genre. It demonstrates through William Congreve’s Incognita (1692) and ...
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This chapter outlines the role of neoclassical poetics at the time in the eighteenth century when the novel emerged as a new genre. It demonstrates through William Congreve’s Incognita (1692) and Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) that the neoclassical rules that were derived from classical authors such as Aristotle and Horace and at first applied to drama also served a crucial role in the critical discussion of novel. Don Quixote’s appearance in “Essay on Criticism” underlines that vraisemblance was conceived not as a one-to-one correspondence with reality but as a shaped mimesis which requires the discernment of authors and critics. The field of tensions between ancients and moderns in literature and the sciences is illustrated through the example of John Dryden. Neoclassicism is by no means simple dogma but rather describes a complex negotiation of critical currents with a shared interest in how literature engages the mind.Less
This chapter outlines the role of neoclassical poetics at the time in the eighteenth century when the novel emerged as a new genre. It demonstrates through William Congreve’s Incognita (1692) and Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (1711) that the neoclassical rules that were derived from classical authors such as Aristotle and Horace and at first applied to drama also served a crucial role in the critical discussion of novel. Don Quixote’s appearance in “Essay on Criticism” underlines that vraisemblance was conceived not as a one-to-one correspondence with reality but as a shaped mimesis which requires the discernment of authors and critics. The field of tensions between ancients and moderns in literature and the sciences is illustrated through the example of John Dryden. Neoclassicism is by no means simple dogma but rather describes a complex negotiation of critical currents with a shared interest in how literature engages the mind.
Laura L. Knoppers
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198769774
- eISBN:
- 9780191822605
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769774.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter explores Anglo-Irish poet John Hopkins’s Milton’s Paradise Lost Imitated in Rhyme (1699), a lively, comic, and virtually unknown adaptation of Books 4, 6, and 9 of Paradise Lost written ...
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This chapter explores Anglo-Irish poet John Hopkins’s Milton’s Paradise Lost Imitated in Rhyme (1699), a lively, comic, and virtually unknown adaptation of Books 4, 6, and 9 of Paradise Lost written in rhymed verse for a female readership. As he depicts a coy, feigning Eve and an Adam who craves the excitement of the chase, Hopkins draws upon the Ovidian arts of love as bawdily featured in Restoration comedies, particularly the works of William Congreve. Hopkins’s rewriting of Ovid within the context of Edenic marriage shows how Milton’s Eve both prefigures and resists the Restoration coquette as figured in such plays as Congreve’s The Old Batchelour, The Double Dealer, and Love for Love. Milton’s links with Restoration drama hence move well beyond John Dryden’s often-studied The State of Innocence.Less
This chapter explores Anglo-Irish poet John Hopkins’s Milton’s Paradise Lost Imitated in Rhyme (1699), a lively, comic, and virtually unknown adaptation of Books 4, 6, and 9 of Paradise Lost written in rhymed verse for a female readership. As he depicts a coy, feigning Eve and an Adam who craves the excitement of the chase, Hopkins draws upon the Ovidian arts of love as bawdily featured in Restoration comedies, particularly the works of William Congreve. Hopkins’s rewriting of Ovid within the context of Edenic marriage shows how Milton’s Eve both prefigures and resists the Restoration coquette as figured in such plays as Congreve’s The Old Batchelour, The Double Dealer, and Love for Love. Milton’s links with Restoration drama hence move well beyond John Dryden’s often-studied The State of Innocence.
Nicholas Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198728788
- eISBN:
- 9780191795510
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198728788.003.0017
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The paper considers translations of the Homeric Hymns by three English poets, Chapman, Congreve, and Shelley. Chapman’s version is the first in English (1624), in rhyming couplets. He expands the ...
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The paper considers translations of the Homeric Hymns by three English poets, Chapman, Congreve, and Shelley. Chapman’s version is the first in English (1624), in rhyming couplets. He expands the original considerably, and his style can be over-elaborate, but he is fresh and lively. Congreve’s version of the Hymn to Aphrodite (1710), in rhyming couplets, also expands the Greek but is elegant and fluent. A passage from it is immortalized in the libretto of Handel’s Semele. Shelley translated some of the shorter Hymns in 1818, but his version of the Hymn to Hermes in ottava rima (1820) is a tour de force, witty, light-hearted and ingenious. The paper also shows how Shelley’s translations influenced the language of his own poetry. These versions illustrate three different responses to the Hymns by major English poets, of the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and of the Romantic period.Less
The paper considers translations of the Homeric Hymns by three English poets, Chapman, Congreve, and Shelley. Chapman’s version is the first in English (1624), in rhyming couplets. He expands the original considerably, and his style can be over-elaborate, but he is fresh and lively. Congreve’s version of the Hymn to Aphrodite (1710), in rhyming couplets, also expands the Greek but is elegant and fluent. A passage from it is immortalized in the libretto of Handel’s Semele. Shelley translated some of the shorter Hymns in 1818, but his version of the Hymn to Hermes in ottava rima (1820) is a tour de force, witty, light-hearted and ingenious. The paper also shows how Shelley’s translations influenced the language of his own poetry. These versions illustrate three different responses to the Hymns by major English poets, of the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and of the Romantic period.
