The thesis is based on a first-line catalogue of versions of the Greek Anacreontea in Latin, French and Italian from 1469 to 1605 (55 poets) and in England from 1518 to 1683 (59 poets). Texts are given of the principal versions of the six most popular Anacreontic poems: these are the two recusationes (Poems 1 and 16 in Stephanus), "The Beggar Cupid" (Poem 3), a drinking song (19), "Cupid and the Bee" (40), and the cicada-poem (43). After a review of modern critical theory of the quality, dating and authorship of the Anacreontea, it is shown how the poems became famous as the work of Anacreon in France in the 1550s, through the efforts of Estienne, Dorat and Ronsard: one unpublished poem may have been known earlier by Joannes Secundus. All the versions of the six poems listed above are compared in detail: particular attention is paid to the sources and tone of the English translations. Some account is given of all other English poets and dramatists of the period who made use of the Anacreontea. Included are imitations by Watson, Barnes, and other Elizabethan sonneteers: scholarly versions by A. W. and Thomas Stanley: and the "paraphrastic" translations of Cowley, Willis and Wood. There are detailed discussions of Spenser's "Anacreontics" in Amoretti, of Holyday's play Technogamia, of Lovelace's "The Grasse-hopper", and of emblems by Whitney and Ayres: also included are versions by Berkenhead, Brome, Cotton, Drayton, Thomas Forde, Greene, Greville, Herrick, Richard James, Jonson, Kendall, Leech, Lodge, Oldham, Randolph, Rochester, Shakespeare, Sherburne, Shirley, Sidney, Soowthern, Spelman, Suckling, Thomas Tomkis and Mary Wroth. The conclusion summarises contemporary translation theory, and delineates three main phases of translation in England. There is a special discussion of poems entitled "Anacreontics", and a list of seventeenth-century musical settings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:595872 |
| Date | January 1980 |
| Creators | Hilton, Michael Charles |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:07263f64-8f8b-4ec0-82a2-ceea8d2edb45 |
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