British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
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BA PDF Symposium 200526 April 2005 AbstractsDr Syrithe PughExile and Elysium: Intertextuality and the Double Space of Herrick’s HesperidesDespite the recent recuperation of political aspects of Robert Herrick's 1648 collection of verse, his pervasive classicism still tends to be treated as a gesture of escape from the historical into the timeless. In fact, Herrick's use of allusion and imitation is a vital component of his royalist polemic. For instance, there is an ongoing pattern of allusion to Ovid's exile poetry, which provides a model both for complaint, expressing the dejection of defeated royalists, and for a compensatory confidence in poetic immortality which forms the basis of a sense of immunity to the hostile parliamentary regime. These moods inform the two aspects of the 'space' of the Hesperides – the Devonshire of his 'banishment into the loathed West' described with a bitterness recalling Ovid's descriptions of Tomis and reflecting his discontent at the geographical and political marginalization of the royalist cause, and the virtual space of his poetry, the 'sacred grove' in which he preserves, through immortal poetry, the values banished by the current regime. Intertextuality itself is a central concern of the collection, which figures imitation as a process of reanimation and reciprocal dialogue, an extension of and metaphor for the preservation of the royalist community through manuscript exchange which forms both part of the subject and the purpose of Herrick's collection. Dr Syrithe Pugh is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of English at the University of Leeds. Prior to this she obtained a masters in English from Princeton University and a DPhil from Somerville College. Her current interests include intertextuality in Classical and Renaissance poetry and George Chapman. Forthcoming publications include Spenser and Ovid to be published by Ashgate. |