Jonson, Shakespeare and Early Modern Virgil

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 in William Shakespeare. It is a case study in cultural/social hegemony and resistance.

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 analyses what was at stake in the reproduction 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 sociopolitical 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 sociopolitical 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 Shakespeare has been constructed and used, especially as national poet, from the early modern period until our own time.