What Daniel Really Did with the Pharsalia: The Civil Wars, Lucan, and King James

Abstract

It has long been recognized that Samuel Daniel's poem The Civil Wars (15951609) is indebted to Lucan's Pharsalia. This article accepts the findings of past scholarship as to Daniel's specific borrowings from Lucan, but argues that Daniel's appropriation and development of Lucanian materials is more complex and less programmatic than has previously been suggested, testifying less to an ideologically motivated pattern of borrowing than to the broader priorities of Daniel's historiography. It is also important to read Daniel's use of Lucan in conjunction with two other factors: his use of chronicle histories for his historical matter, and the several known stages of revision to the poem. Distinguishing the Lucanian providentialism expressed in all extant versions of the poem from the very similar 'Tudor myth' providentialism derived from Edward Hall, which is expressed only in the final, 1609, edition of the poem, the article argues that Daniel's use of Lucan in 1609 is one aspect of a cautiously critical attitude towards King James in this edition, which contrasts not only with the poet's previous acclamation of Queen Elizabeth, but also with the warm praise of James in Daniel's accession poem, A Panegyrike Congratulatorie.