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1998 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

Ovidianism in the English Renaissance

Research Project

Project/Area Number 08610473
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Allocation TypeSingle-year Grants
Section一般
Research Field 英語・英米文学
Research InstitutionOchanomizu University

Principal Investigator

SHIMIZU Tetsuro  Ochanomizu University, Associate Professor, 文教育学部, 助教授 (60235653)

Project Period (FY) 1996 – 1998
KeywordsShakespeare / Marlowe / Ovid
Research Abstract

The influence of Ovid on the English literature was conspicuous in 1580s and 1590s. Several translations of Ovid's poems were published, a lot of epyllia or Ovidian short epics were written, and Ovidian imagery was frequently used in the poetic language of Elizabethan theatre. The aim of this research project has been to find a possible answer to the question of what Ovidianism meant to Elizabethan poets and playwrights-especially Christopher Marlowe (1564-93) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616). The head investigator's essay "Translating Classical Literature-Marlowe's All Ovids Elegies, etc." (Japanese) (1997) argues that Marlowe came to establish English verse form and rhetoric through his experience of translating Ovid's love poems Amores into English. The second essay "Dawn and Hero's Blush : Ovidianism as a Tragic Cosmology" (Japanese) (1998) and the third essay "Jove's High Firmament and This Fair and Pleasant Green : Marlowe's Theatrical Cosmos" (Japanese) (1999) argue that Marlowe and young Shakespeare formed their images of threatrical cosmos adapting some images from Ovid's elegiac and epic poems. The conditions of their theater were quite different from those of classical Greek tragedy, and it seems that they tried to create an imaginary dramatic space of their own by using some poetic imagery of pagan mythology. Ovid was distinguished for his erotic and pagan mythology of irresponsible gods, for his narrative art and for his playfully fine rhetoric, It can be concluded that Marlowe and some of his contemporary poets discovered that Ovid's rhetoric and poetic imagery were strategically useful when they wanted to give free and purely artistic expression to their new thought and sensibility. Thus Ovidianism was a temporary phenomenon that was seen while dramatists were striving to get independent from the government and religion.

  • Research Products

    (6 results)

All Other

All Publications (6 results)

  • [Publications] 清水徹郎: "暁とヒアロウの紅潮と-悲劇のコズモロジーとしてのオヴィディアニズム" 英語青年. 144. 31-35 (1998)

    • Description
      「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
  • [Publications] 玉泉八州男: "エリザベス朝演劇の誕生" 株式会社水声社, 639 (1997)

    • Description
      「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
  • [Publications] 高橋康也: "逸脱の系譜" 研究社出版株式会社, 600 (1999)

    • Description
      「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
  • [Publications] Tetsuro Shimizu: "Dawn and Hero's Blush : Ovidianism as a Tragic Cosmology (Japanese)" The Rising Generation. Vol.144. 31-35 (1998)

    • Description
      「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
  • [Publications] Yasuo Tamaizumi, et al.: The Birth of Elizabethan Drama (Japanese). Suiseisha, 639 (1997)

    • Description
      「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
  • [Publications] Yasunari Takahashi, et al.: The Genealogy of Deviation (Japanese). Kenkyusha Publishing (forthcoming), about 600 pages (1999)

    • Description
      「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より

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Published: 1999-12-08  

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