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The Metamorphoses in Eighteenth-Century England the Metamorphoses in Eighteenth-Century England THE METAMORPHOSES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND THE METAMORPHOSES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND: A STUDY OF THE REPUTATION AND INFLUENCE OF THE MORALIZED TRADITION OF OVID'S METAMORPHOSES IN THE CRITICISM, HANDBOOKS AND TRANSLATIONS OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND, WITH A READING OF SELECTED POEMS IN THE TRADITION By BERNADETTE ELEANOR LYNN, M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (1974) McMASTER UNIVERSITY (English) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: The Metamorphoses in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study of the Reputation and Influence of the Moralized Tradition of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the Criticism, Handbooks and Translations of Eighteenth-Century England, with a Reading of Selected Poems in the Tradition. AUTHOR: Bernadette Eleanor Lynn, B.A. (Carlow College) M.A. (University of Pittsburgh) SUPERVISOR: Dr. James King NUMBER OF PAGES: vii, 338 ii THESIS ABSTRACT This study examines the reputation and influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses in Augustan England in order to show the persistence of the allegorical reading of the poem. Although the ultimate purpose of the study is to shed light on the interpretation of Restoration and eighteenth--century poetry, such a direct application of the metamorphic tradition to the reading of the verse cannot be undertaken before the critical position of the Metamorphoses in the intellectual and artistic milieu of the period has been determined. Because it is my contention that Ovid's poem continued to be read in the Augustan age in much the same way that it had been in the Renaissance, the study begins with an analysis of the relationship between classicism and Renaissance humanism and the way in which this relationship affected Restoration and early eighteenth century thought and writing. From there, the study briefly reviews the sixteenth and seventeenth century thought on the Metamorphoses and, then branches into Augustan criticism, prefaces, translations, editions and handbooks which discuss Ovid's poem and which are written by British authors and continental writers who influenced British thought. It has sometimes been assumed that the Metamorphoses died an early death in the Augustan age because of the travesties of the poem and because of Addison's seeming disavowal of allegorization; therefore, I have tried to correct this assessment by a comprehensive analysis of the materials of the period. iii The study shows that while the critics have been correct in their belief that science and antiquarianism, along with a certain hatred of heathenism and narrowly defined sexual mores, caused the popularity of the Metamorphoses to wane in the eighteenth century, the poem still held a considerable prestige among writers and artists until 1750. Garth's 1717 Preface to the Metamorphoses, from which authors borrow freely until Boyse's New Pantheon (1753), is the seminal essay on Ovid's poem for the early eighteenth century, and his allegorical reading of the poem and appreciation of Ovid's wit are representative attitudes toward the poem. By 1750, however, Ovid's classic began to be questioned by men like Spence because it deviated from the true picture of the heathen mythology, and, consequently, the Metamorphoses in the later eighteenth century become the sole realm of schoolboys. While historians like Banier and Boyse believe the Metamorphoses to be significant in the early century, by 1750 the historians, too, sought more authentic materials, but writers clung to Ovid as a poetical model and moral teacher at least until that time. Allegory justified the continued usage of Ovid artistically and morally, and ubiquitous use of the Metamorphoses in Augustan poetry testifies to its popularity and significance. A careful examination of the comments on the Metamorphoses indicates that the truths that critics may gather about the scientific progress of an age are not always applicable to the artistic situation of the times. Furthermore, to confirm a thesis, one must go beyond the mere perusal of a few works of the period. In the case of Ovid, Addison's disparaging comment on the allegorization in Ross's Mystagogus Poeticus has been taken as the damaging evidence against the allegorical iv reading of the Metamorphoses, whereas Addison intends his criticism mainly for "mystical" allegory. By a careful study of a number of eignteenth-century works a clearer and more valid picture emerges. The importanc~ of such a study for literary purposes lies in its applicabili~y to the poetry of the period, As I have tried to argue in the last chapter of this thesis, Ovidian matter is not a mere window-dressing for frivolous poems, but an integral part of the structure and meaning. By applying the moralized reading of the Metamorphoses to allusions in poems such as Astraea Redux or The Dunciad and to the metamorphic patterns in such poems as Claremont, The Fan and "Eloisa to Abelard", I have discovered in Augustan verse a moral texture which the well-read poets submerged in subtle allusions, not immediately apparent from a casual reading of the poems. Although travesties and burlesques of Ovid's Metamorphoses were published in the eighteenth century, his master work continued to be regarded a major poetic document, and even those poets who used his work for the purpose of travesty often did so to make a serious point. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. James King, for his help and encouragement in the preparation of this thesis which was partly inspired by his unpublished article on the Metamorphoses in The Rape of the Lock presented before the McMaster Critical Society in 1972. Special thanks are also due to the Canada Council and to McMaster University both of whom provided me with funds to visit the Yale University libraries to examine materials on the Metamorphoses and on Augustan mythography. I would also like to thank the library staffs at the Sterling and Beinecke Libraries, Yale University, and at The Rare Books Room, Mills Library, McMaster University, and also Mr. Leonard Greenwood, librarian of Hartlebury Castle, for their courtesy and help to me when I was doing the research for this study. Finally, I am indebted to my husband, Murray, whose advice and aid has been invaluable. The translations of the passage from Shrevelius p. 54, from Mattaire pp. 149 and 150, and from Burmann, pp, 152-153 and 154 are essentially those of Dr. Donald Shepherd of the Classics Department of McMaster University. I have incorporated his revisions of these translations into my original efforts, and I am sincerely grateful for his help. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi I THE METAMORPHOSES AND ITS CLASSICAL 1 CONTEXTS IN AUGUSTAN ENGLAND II THE METAMORPHOSES IN AUGUSTAN CRITICISM 39 III THE METAL~ORPHOSES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY 99 MYTHOLOGICAL HANDBOOKS AND TRANSLATIONS IV THE HETAMORPHOSES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY 201 APPENDIX A: THE METAHORPHOSES AND THE MODERN CRITICS 319 BIBLIOGRAPHY 324 vii I THE METAMORPHOSES AND ITS CLASSICAL CONTEXTS IN AUGUSTAN ENGLAND My aim in this thesis is to offer a re-evaluation of the reputation and influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the Augustan age in order to establish the existence of a persistent allegorical tradition which extends at least until the mid-eighteenth century. Some students of the period have argued that individual poems use mythology in a moralized fashion, but other than these intimations of allegorization which men like Earl Wasserman and David Hauser have perceived in the poems themselves, no one has yet provided the necessary proof to validate their arguments.1 By studying a cross-section of critics, editors, translators, mythologists and poets, I hope to show that what previous scholars have hypothetically suggested about the allegorization of the Metamorphoses is indeed true. Physics, chemistry, biology, certainly all sciences, make use of a principle of preservation of matter effected through a kind of metamor­ phosis. Ecologists probably would not acquiesce to the scientific validity of Pythagoras's speech (Metamorphoses, XV, 482), but they would recognize the similarities of their own theories to the Pythagorean philosophy which he expounds concerning the interrelationship and interdependence of nature and its creatures through metamorphoses. So metamorphosis, while it denotes change, transformation and flux, also implies a continuity; essential matter is immortal, only its forms or containers change. 2 By definition, then, metamorphosis is synonymous with certain chemical and biological processes, but besides being applied to science, it has continuously found a place in imaginative literature. James Joyce, for example, uses the Dedalus-Icarus myth in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as the central motif of his work. Stephen, the artist-hero of the novel, progressively identifies with his mythical father, Dedalus, the arch-forger of Crete and the creator of the laby­ rinth. This growing relationship with his archetypal parent leads Stephen to accept his vocation as an artist and to fulfill the prophetic epigraph to the novel which Joyce chose from Metamorphoses, VIII, 188: "Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes •••" [And he [Dedalus] setshis mind to work upon unknown arts]. Like Dedalus, Stephen allows his mind free play among "unknown arts", changing white and red roses to green, and transforming the remains of the ancients and the scholastics into an esthetic system. It is also significant that the climax of Stephen's development in A Portrait involves a metamorphosis: when he gazes upon the girl bathing in the sea, she is transformed before his eyes: She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane's and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh.
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