The response to Horace in the seventeenth century

This thesis traces the various vievs of Horace held in the seventeenth century and examines translation and imitation in the period. The main focus is on the influence of Horace's Odes on lyric poetry. For the period 1600-1660, four authors are discussed in detail, Ben Jonson, Herrick, Marvell and Cowley. Other authors treated include Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Donne, Campion, Chapman, Wotton, Carew, Randolph, Cartwright, Habington, Vaughan, Lovelace, Fanshave, Mildmay Fane, George Daniel of Beswick, Milton, Oven Felltham, Izaak Walton, Denham, Waller and Alexander Brome. In the period from 1660, authors discussed include Dryden, Rochester, Sedley, Dorset, Mulgrave, Otway, Etherege, Wycherley, Oldham, Prior, Ambrose Philips, Katherine Philips, John Norris, Cotton, Lady Mary Chudleigh, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, John Rawlet, John Tutchin, Temple and Evelyn.
The introduction argues briefly that although Horace is normally associated vith the eighteenth century, in fact his Odes were more influential in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, and points to some misconceptions about the nature of Horace's poetry that have helped to obscure this. It notes that the interest in the Odes in the period is a change from the Mediaeval and sixteenth-century approach to Horace, and points out that the study of how a period responds to a particular poet throve light on its general character.
Chapter I provides some background information. It outlines the place of Horace in the school curricula and shove that the twin emphases in the school reading of Horace were on his morals and his style, the latter being studied with the practical aim of imitation. School textbooks are described. An account of editions of Horace in the period follows. It is pointed out that the text of Horace was more corrupt than it is today, and argued that some of the translators of Horace used the school edition of John Bond. The twin emphases of commentary on Horace are again shown to be on his morals and his style: Parthenio's commentary is examined in some detail. Next, some ideas about Horace's life disseminated by the lives included in editions are mentioned. Finally, the influence of quotation books and emblem books is considered. It is argued that though they contained many of the poet's favourite Horatian passages, this does not mean that writers did not read Horace directly. It is shown that they present a moral Horace and that they sometimes cause distortion through excerpting passages out of context.
Chapter II deals with the volumes of translations of Horace by Thomas Drant, John Ashmore, Thomas Hawkins, Henry Rider, John Smith, 'Unknown Mase', and Richard Fanshawe. A brief sketch is given of the development of translation in the century, and it is pointed out that there are some examples of the 'imitation' before Cowley. The books of translations are then examined against this background, and it is argued that Fanshawe should not be viewed as heralding the mid-century revolution in translation but as fitting into his own period. The twin interests of the translators are analysed as being content, primarily moral, and lyric style. Fanshawe is seen as of particular interest as trying to embody Horatian moral ideals in his life and as being most successful in conveying Horace's lyricism.
Chapter III discusses various ways in which the formal aspects of Horace's Odes influenced seventeenth-century lyric. It is pointed out that this influence has been obscured because English writers do not produce pastiches but recreate Horace in modern modes and because of generic differences between the Odes and seventeenth-century lyric. Some differences in structure and style between the two are then considered, Cowley's translation of C.III.i and Carew's The Spring being used to illustrate the differences of structure. Some exceptions are noted in the poetry of Milton, Jonson, Herrick, etc. Next, the similarities and areas of influence are discussed - blends in tone, methods of making lyric personal and various poetic poses.
Chapter IV deals with Ben Jonson. First, it is shown in some detail how he built up a persona in Poetaster drawn from Horace which he then carried-over into his poems, although in the latter it is more varied, humorous and attractive. Next it is shown how his approach to Horace was a moral one, and how he absorbs topics from Horace into his moral vision. Thirdly, his close, craftsmanly, rhetorical interest in Horace is described, with reference to his underlinings in Parthenio's commentary, his translations of Horace and his imitations of Horatian features of style in An Ode. To himselfe. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Jonson's classicism.
Chapter V considers Herrick. The aspects of his persona which derive from the Anacreontea and the Greek Anthology are first noted, and then the Jonsonian-Horatian poems, A Country life and A Panegerick to Sir Lewis Pemberton are discussed. Next Herrick's distinctive pose as the small man and his Horatian poetic autobiography are described and evaluated. There follow detailed discussions of His age and A Paranaeticall, or Advisive Verse and of Herrick's use of the non semper theme. Herrick's method of combining many classical topics and allusions in one poem is demonstrated, and the chapter ends by considering his general similarity of spirit with Horace.
Chapter VI investigates the conventional seventeenth-century view of Horace as a moral poet. It is argued that Horace could be viewed as a moral poet by judicious selection, as in the poetry of Casimir Sarbiewski. The easy way in which poets blended Horatian moral themes with Christianity is demonstrated, and some less easy blends, for example in the poetry of William Habington, are described. The formation of an ideal of the constant man from Horace's descriptions of the Stoic sapiens in Serm.II.vii.83-8 and C.III.iii.1-8 is given as an example of assimilation of Horace involving some distortion. The seventeenth-century ideal of constancy and Horace's attitude to change are contrasted, and a contrast is also drawn between English poets' understanding of Horace here and that of Erasmus, Montaigne and Isaac Casaubon. Next, a sketch of the favourite moral themes imitated from Horace is drawn. Finally, it is shown how seventeenth-century poets began to adopt the Horatian manner of treating moral themes, by relating moral commonplaces to their personal predicament, in both epistle and ode, and a contrast is drawn with the sixteenth century.
Chapter VII deals with imitation of some other Horatian themes. It is shown that Horace's love poems, with the exception of C.III.ix, were not very influential. The strong response of seventeenth-century poets to Horace's poems on transience is discussed. It is then argued that some modern English scholars misrepresent carpe diem in Horace as being a seduction argument, whereas it is really a symposiac topic of a potentially serious Epicurean kind, compatible with the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. Some combinations of Horace and the Sermon on the Mount in seventeenth-century poetry are discussed. Some account ic then given of the growth of understanding of Epicurus' teaching on pleasure as manifested in Charleton's Epicurus's morals, and a group of Horatian writers who vere interested in Epicureanism - Evelyn, Cowley and Fanshave - are noted. Next, imitations of Horace's symposiac poexas are treated. Seven poems, Jonson's Inviting a Friend to Supper, Herrick's An Ode to Sir Clipsebie Crew, Milton's sonnets to Lawrence and Skinner, Vaughan's To hid retired friend, an Invitation to Brecknock and To ... Leves and Lovelace's The Grasse-hopper, are discussed in detail. It is argued that these are some of the most perfect recreations of Horace in the century. A local reason for interest in Horace's symposiac poetry is found in the Cavalier hostility to Puritanism. Finally, it is shovn that there vere fev imitations of Horace's public poems In English in this period apart from the Horatian Ode.
Chapter VIII deals with Marvell. It is argued that though Marvell does not imitate many specific topics from Horace, he is very close to Horace in spirit. One or two ingenious variations of Horatian topics are discussed. The last section is on An Horatian Ode. It is argued that, although the poem cannot be entirely accounted for as Horatian pastiche, Marvell imitated Horace's political odes, notably the Cleopatra ode, and that he chose Horace as a model because he offered a detached and objective style of panegyric, in contrast to the style of Waller.
Chapter IX discusses Cowley. It is argued that he is a transitional figure in the century's response to Horace, and his viev of Horace as a poet of retirement and gardens is discussed. Adoptions of a Horatian role in his pre-Restoration works are noted. The later works, the Sex Libri Plantarum and the Essays, are then discussed in detail. The latter Is considered as an anthology of earlier poets' favourite passages of Horace. It is shovn that Cowley became a period ideal of the Horatian man. It is argued that Cowley vas more interested in Horace's themes than his style, so that he was willing to recast Horace in the alien Banner of the Pindaric, and that because he was more interested in the hexameter poems than the Odes, he prefigures the Restoration approach: but the Essays are seen as belonging in spirit to the earlier period.
Chapter X investigates the lightened conception of Horace prevalent in the Restoration. It examines briefly French commentators, translation, Dryden and the Court wits, and considers various new ideas of Horace, as a man of the Town and gallant, as a model of civilised intercourse, as a philosopher of common sense, and as a libertine 'Epicurean'. Two reasons behind this latter view are examined - the libertinism of the Court wits and the polarisation of lyric into high and low. It is argued that Horace's hexameter poems became more influential than the Odes. Finally, an exceptional group, the Cowleians, are shown to have inherited a serious conception of Horace and many of the themes which appealed to earlier poets, although, in admiring Horace's content more than his lyric style, they are seen as heralding the eighteenth-century rational approach to Horace.
There are four appendices. The first shows that many, but not all, of the echoes of Horace in Herrick's A Country life may be found in Mirandula. The second gives a list of books of translations of Horace in the century and discusses some problems relating to them: it argues that Holyday was not the author of All Horace his lyrics; it identifies Robert Creswell as the author of an anonyaous translation of C.IV.vii in Brome's anthology; it discusses the identity of J.H. and the date of composition of his translations; and it explains the two 1715 volumes. The third and fourth are a list of single translations from the Odes and Epodes and a list of echoes and quotations of favourite passages of Horace.