DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/65HG-YJ92
Defense Date
2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Joshua Eckhardt
Abstract
This thesis is an analysis of an English verse translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, published in 1632 by the Englishman George Sandys. This book included a full English commentary and was illustrated by several full-plate engravings. This study examines the edition's elaborate utilization of the rhetorical practices of artificial memory and related concepts of rhetorical invention. It demonstrates that these rhetorical practices were chosen and implemented for their inherent structural appropriateness for the cultivation of prudence, or practical wisdom. It reveals that the lessons in practical wisdom encoded in the work through the techniques of artificial memory were particularly aimed at political issues and the concerns of rulers. From the work's preoccupation with prudence as appropriate for a ruler, and from the dedication and prefatory texts, it becomes clear that it was intended to provide a means of counsel, or advice, to the King Charles I in an elaborate poetic format.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
May 2013