The Ovidian Vogue : Literary Fashion and Imitative Practice in Late Elizabethan England

The Roman Poet Ovid Was One Of The Most-imitated Classical Writers Of The Elizabethan Age And A Touchstone For Generations Of English Writers. In The Ovidian Vogue, Daniel Moss Argues That Poets Appropriated Ovid Not Just To Connect With The Ancient Past But Also To Communicate And Compete Within Late Elizabethan Literary Culture. Moss Explains How In The 1590s Rising Stars Like Thomas Nashe And William Shakespeare Adopted Ovidian Language To Introduce Themselves To Patrons And Rivals, While Established Figures Like Edmund Spenser And Michael Drayton Alluded To Ovid's Works As A Way To Map Their Own Poetic Development. Even Poets Such As George Chapman, John Donne, And Ben Jonson, Whose Early Work Pointedly Abandoned Ovid As Cliché, Could Not Escape His Influence. Moss's Research Exposes The Literary Impulses At Work In The Flourishing Of Poetry That Grappled With Ovid's Cultural Authority.

The Roman poet Ovid was one of the most-imitated classical writers of the Elizabethan age and a touchstone for generations of English writers. In The Ovidian Vogue, Daniel Moss argues that poets appropriated Ovid not just to connect with the ancient past but also to communicate and compete within late Elizabethan literary culture.

Moss explains how in the 1590s rising stars like Thomas Nashe and William Shakespeare adopted Ovidian language to introduce themselves to patrons and rivals, while established figures like Edmund Spenser and Michael Drayton alluded to Ovid’s works as a way to map their own poetic development. Even poets such as George Chapman, John Donne, and Ben Jonson, whose early work pointedly abandoned Ovid as cliché, could not escape his influence. Moss’s research exposes the literary impulses at work in the flourishing of poetry that grappled with Ovid’s cultural authority.

Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 Abbreviations 11 Introduction: “Note how she quotes the leaves” 13 1. Impotence and Stillbirth: Nashe, Shakespeare, and the Ovidian Debut 33 2. Shadow and Corpus: The Shifting Figure of Ovid in Chapman’s Early Poetry 63 3. Ovid in the Godless Poem: Allusive Rebellion in Edmund Spenser’s Legend of Justice 86 4. The Post-Metamorphic Landscape in Drayton’s Endimion and Phoebe and Englands Heroicall Epistles 131 5. The Brief Ovidian Career of John Donne 164 Conclusion: “It sticks strangely, whatever it is” 193 Notes 199 Bibliography 243 Index 255