A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF MARTIAL IN THE RENAISSANCE UPON THE EPIGRAMS OF BEN JONSON

The aim of this study is to compare the epigrams of Martial with those of Ben Jonson to determine what Jonson meant when he called his style of epigram writing "the old way, and the true." It proceeds not by examination of Jonson's direct borrowings from the Roman epigrammatist, but rather by reconstruction of the Renaissance understanding of Martial and the genre epigram. In previous studies of the influence of Martial upon Jonson, little attention was actually paid to Martial. Instead, reliance was placed upon limited perceptions of Martial solely as a satirist or jester, resulting in a second-hand and incomplete appreciation of his art. This study seeks a more accurate assessment of Martialian style, especially as it was understood in the Renaissance and reflected in Jonson. Chapter I documents the scholarly interest in Martial and the epigram which Jonson displayed throughout his life. It casts both epigrammatists as docti poetae, a term used in both antiquity and the Renaisance to describe poets who had mastered the forms and rules of poetic art through the study of the best models. Other epigrammatists of the day looked at Martial and saw a satirist or jester Jonson looked and saw another doctus poeta like himself, and it is this deeper understanding of Martial that inspires the brilliance of Epigrammes. Chapter II dispels popular misconceptions about the genre epigram by re-examination of critical treatises on the epigram by Scaliger (1561), Correa (1569), Possevino (1593), Rader (1627), and Vossius (1647). It posits a definition of the epigram that is more flexible than the commonly accepted conception of it as a short, witty, satirical poem with a two-part structure. The treatises are shown to lend no support to the bipartite theory, to any requirements regarding length, or to classification of epigrams into Greek or Roman "types." Instead, they offer comparison as the basis of epigrammatic wit and the couplet as the structural unit. Chapter III reveiws three Renaissance commentaries on the text of Martial: that of L. Ramirez de Prado (1607), Matthew Rader (1627), and Peter Scriverius (1619). They affirm Martial's reputation among Renaissance scholars as a doctus poeta who was part of a long, imitative, poetic tradition that linked Renaissance humanists with antiquity. The commentaries support the conclusions about the epigram that were reached in the critical treatises. In addition, they display the commentators' attempts to align the work of Martial with that of Silver Age prose writers. The many references to Seneca emphasize the Stoic light in which they read Martial. Relying in part upon the commentators' interpretations of particular epigrams, the fourth chapter presents a reading of Book I of Martial's epigrams which seeks to bestow more form on the book than is commonly attributed to it. It argues that in ordering his book, Martial used, in addition to Catullan cycles, Augustan patterns of arrangement as well. The book realizes its unity from recurring words, images, and motifs in loosely connected sequences of poems. Chapter V undertakes a reading of Jonson's Epigrammes with an understanding of "imitation of Martial" in the wider sense that the first four chapters set forth.