The Augustan Art of Poetry: Augustan Translation of the Classics

by Robin Sowerby

Overview

While previous studies have concentrated largely upon political concerns, The Augustan Art of Poetry is an exploration of the influence of the Roman Augustan aesthetic on English neo-classical poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the conclusion of his translation of Virgil, Dryden claims implicitly to have given English poetry the kind of refinement in language and style that Virgil had given the Latin. In this timely new study Robin Sowerby offers a strong apologia for the fine artistry of the Augustans, concentrating in particular on the period's translations, a topic and method not hitherto ventured in any full-length comparative study. The mediation of the Augustan aesthetic is explored through the De Arte Poetica of Vida represented in the Augustan version of Pitt, and its culmination is represented by examination of Dryden's Virgil in relation to predecessors. The effect of the Augustan aesthetic upon versions of silver Latin poets and upon Pope's Homer is also assessed and comparisons are drawn with modern translations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199286126
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/30/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robin Sowerby is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Studies at the University of Stirling.

Table of Contents

1. The art of poetry: Vida to PopeThe education of the poet: setting the cultural sceneThe Virgilian iArs/i: disposition of the poet's materialThe Virgilian iArs/i: language and styleConclusion to Vida2. The Augustan ideal: rhyme and refinementEarly English classicismThe early Augustan aesthetic in EnglishThe full Augustan aestheticMastery of the medium: the continuing debate about rhymeAppendix: The continuing debate about rhyme3. Augustan translation of silver LatinDryden's translation of Persius and Juvenal: Dryden's critical assessmentRowe's LucanPope's Statius4. Augustan HomerHeroic beginnings: The Episode of SarpedonThe main fable: the anger of AchillesThe art of Pope's HomerThe challenge of the iOdyssey/i

Editorial Reviews

"This comparative analysis demonstrates its central virtue over and over again, as the reader is encouraged to follow the author's close reading of the precise aesthetic effects of particular additions, extensions, elaborations, and omissions."-Iighteenth-Century Studies

"Remarkable book. Illuminating and impressive as an inward reconstruction of the reading and writing processes of the Augustan poets and some of their critics."-Modern Philology

"[Sowerby] is a sensitive and learned reader, and his analyses are often richly rewarding and informative. Any one interested in the deployment of intertextuality...in eighteenth-century literary culture cannot afford to ignore or neglect this book." —The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography

"[A] very fine study, perhaps the best book I have ever read on eighteenth-century poetry." —The Scriblerian

From the Publisher