Jonson, Shakespeare and Early Modern Virgil [Hardcover]

Examines how Virgil is represented in early modern England, particularly in Jonson's and Shakespeare's writings.This book examines how the writings of one of Western culture's foundational authors, Virgil, are represented and used in early modern England, particularly in the work of Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It shows how Jonson uses the authority of Virgil to reproduce and underwrite social hierarchies, while in The Tempest, Shakespeare interrogates and subverts this use of Virgil. It is a case study in cultural/social hegemony and resistance, which bears directly on the reproduction and use of Shakespeare today.This book examines how the writings of one of Western culture's foundational authors, Virgil, are represented and used in early modern England, particularly in the work of Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It shows how Jonson uses the authority of Virgil to reproduce and underwrite social hierarchies, while in The Tempest, Shakespeare interrogates and subverts this use of Virgil. It is a case study in cultural/social hegemony and resistance, which bears directly on the reproduction and use of Shakespeare today.In this wide-ranging and original study, Margaret Tudeau-Clayton examines how Virgil--the poet as well as his texts--was mediated in early modern England. She analyzes what was at stake in the reproduction and circulation of these mediations of Virgil, focusing specifically on the works of Ben Jonson and on one of Shakespeare's most resonantly Virgilian plays, The Tempest. She argues that the play offers a complex model of cultural and socio-political resistance by engaging critically not only with contemporary mediations of Virgil, but with the ways they were used, especially by Jonson, to reproduce structures of authority (in relation to nature and language as well as to the socio-political order). She also shows how instructive comparisons may be drawn between the ways Virgil was constructed and used in early modern England and the ways lÃÕ