Woodberry, Jill Vanessa; (2025) Horatian lyric in Latin and English, 1620–1660, with special reference to Richard Fanshawe. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

How was Horatian lyric perceived in early-to-mid seventeenth-century England? What sort of contribution could adaptations of Horace’s Odes and Epodes make to both vernacular and Latin literature? How could they intervene in the period’s tumultuous political upheavals? On a personal level, how could they lend moral support and ethical guidance through the shifts in attitudes to both religion and political authority throughout the civil war period? What sort of value did the principal exemplar of this study, Richard Fanshawe, set on his translations of Horace, and how did his priorities change over the course of the years covered by this study? Based on a research methodology of historicised close textual analysis, I present a series of chronological readings of poems written between 1620 and 1660. Fanshawe’s compositions are contextualised within a broad range of case studies of prominent translators and imitators of Horace, covering translation, parodia, paraphrase, allegorical imitation, and allusion – in both Latin and English from manuscript and print sources. I conclude that the major difference between seventeenth-century Horatian reception and modern critical accounts of Horace is the practical use which imitators had for Horatian lyric as a model for both poetic style and ethical guidance. Horace’s moral authority was valued for its personal application, and for guaranteeing prestige in Horatian-inspired panegyric. There was a strong perception of a ‘real’ biographical Horace, often viewed as a friend. Richard Fanshawe changes his use of Horatian lyric, from stylistic model, 1620s–30s (Chapter 1), moral guide as a ‘mirror for princes’, 1640s (Chapter 2), to coded language of bonding for defeated royalists, 1650s (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 surveys other poets turning to Horace to chart the pivotal events of 1659–1660. The thesis revises modern assumptions of a ‘wine, women and song’ ‘Cavalier’ Horace, presenting instead a more ethically grounded poet.

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