Sir Philip Wodehouse's Pantheon of Renaissance Poets

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted.)In 1973 Leeds University Library purchased for the Brotherton Collection a manuscript of poetry composed by Sir Philip Wodehouse (1608-1681), third Baronet, of Kimberley in Norfolk, who was MP for Norfolk 1654-8 and for Thetford in the Restoration parliament.1Wodehouse's manuscript comprises around 365 pages, including about 178 pages in Sir Philip's hand, consisting of drafts and fair copies of his own poems and translations; and about 187 pages of verse by his son Edmund. Sir Philip's special interest was in translation, particularly from classical and neo-Latin poets and philosophers, from whom he selected a variety of moral reflections: his portion of the manuscript includes verse adaptations of Augustine, Claudian, Horace, Martial, Ovid, Petronius, Seneca, Tibullus, and Virgil, poems from the Greek Anthology, and versions of Francis Bacon. There is also a section (fols 104v-108v) of quotations and translations from the immensely popular Latin epigrams of John Owen (c.1560-1622). Generally, Latin quotations on the left-hand pages face Wodehouse's own English translations and associated reflections on the right. Appropriately, these poems are described on the title page (fol. 2r) as 'This forrest of gentiile philosophy', 'forrest' being an echo of Ben Jonson's collections 'The Forest' and 'The Underwood', and behind them Statius' Silvae. In addition, there are several original compositions, notably 'A Satirical Flash', a pungent, epigrammatic satire on contemporary mores written in 1670.2 Wodehouse's characteristic verse form is the couplet, but although some at least of the pieces date from the Restoration, there is no sign of the smoothness pioneered by Denham and Waller, and perfected with such fine variation by Dryden. Rather, Wodehouse's couplets belong with the writing of an earlier generation, having the deliberate awkwardness - deemed appropriate for satire - found in the work of writers such as Marston or Hall. Nor does he share the unbuttoned ethos found in much Restoration verse: his is uniformly a serious stance towards the world. Several of his poems exhibit revisions, some of them quite extensive, and these often take the form of alternative readings inserted between the lines, or new versions of lines and passages added in the margins; sometimes there is no way of telling which readings represent Wodehouse's preferred final thoughts.Among his original compositions is an untitled poem in praise of poetry, which exists in both a Latin and an English version (fols 177v-179r and 179v-181r respectively). It is remarkable for several reasons. First, it presents a pantheon of English poets, including previously unrecorded allusions to Shakespeare and Jonson, and thus both adds to the literary record of such writers and indicates the relative standing of poets from the Elizabethan and Jacobean period in the eyes of a conservative man of letters in the early Restoration period. There are some notable omissions: there is no mention of the mid-century poets Cowley, Denham, Milton, and Waller, nor of the distinctive new voice of Restoration poetry, Dryden. It is a decidedly retrospective canon, and one wonders whether Wodehouse deliberately excluded living writers from his list. If he did, that was not for want of interest or respect, for on the following page (fol. 181v) we find these lines on Katherine Philips, dated December 1664:Dec. 1664. An Epigram on Mrs Philips uponoccasion of Mr J Hubts expression of [teeming to Apollo].3Chast Daphne now may justly iealous grow4Apollo doth, anothr Mistres owe,[Our English Sappho] Philis is her nameso well by him belov'd, as she's his Dame,She ha's by him conceiv'd, & brought him forth,an offspring, worthy of its sacred birth.so masculine, so noble, so divineas do's our sexe, & all her own outshyne.Then Daphne be refresh't, & think't no scorneto yeeild thy selfe, her laurell to adorne. …