Introductory description

The eighteenth century was a period when, in Britain as in other European countries, the consumption and production of Latin verse was regarded as a distinguishing characteristic of the educated gentleman. The ability to engage in Latin verse composition, that is the production of Latin verse in classical meters, was highly valued as cultural capital, and original Latin verse was especially esteemed (as opposed to the translation of English poetry into Latin, which became much more widespread in the nineteenth century).

The module seeks to introduce students to this phenomenon, and to explore a range of examples illustrating the variety of styles and topics to be found in Latin verse of the period: panegyric, devotional, vignettes of nature and everyday life, social and political satire, philosophical speculation, the serious and the humorous. Work by some writers more famous for their work in English (such as Thomas Gray or Samuel Johnson) will be included, but we will also look at some as different as Vincent Bourne (arguably the last British writer to achieve fame on the strength of his Latin poems alone, and whose collected poems went through over a dozen editions in the century after his death), and George Canning, the future Prime Minister whose Oxford prize poem on the Hajj (Iter ad Meccam) won him a sensational success as an undergraduate. We will look not only at writers from Britain, but also examples of those from British colonies in the Caribbean and North America, as well as at Sir William Jones’s use of translation into Latin verse as a means of introducing Western readers to poetry by writers in Arabic, Persian, and Chinese. Selections will encourage discussion of how Latin verse as cultural capital relates to issues of race, class, and gender, as well as colonialism and imperialism.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Selections from the following anthologies (which each went through several editions in the course of the century):

Musae Anglicanae
Carmina Quadragesimalia
Musae Etonenses

and authors:

Joseph Addison
Vincent Bourne
Sir William Jones
Francis Williams
Benjamin Loveling
Isaac Hawkins Browne

Selections for study in each seminar will not exceed 100 lines, and students will be provided with digital copies by the convenor. It should be noted that, with the exception of translations which are the convenor’s own work, all texts and translations used will be out of copyright.

Indicative list of secondary reading:

J. W. Binns, ed., The Latin Poetry of English Poets (London: Routledge, 1974).

Leicester Bradner, Musae Anglicanae: A History of Anglo-Latin Poetry, 1500-1925 (New York: Modern Language Association of America; London: Oxford University Press, 1940).

Philip Ford, Jan Bloemendal, and Charles Fantazzi, ed., Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2014).

John [T.] Gilmore, “The British Empire and the Neo-Latin Tradition: The Case of Francis Williams,” in Barbara Goff, ed., Classics and Colonialism (London: Duckworth, 2005), pp. 92-106.

John [T.] Gilmore, trs., Musae Anglicanae Anglice Redditae: A Selection of Verse written in Latin by British Poets of the Eighteenth Century (Coventry: The Derek Walcott Press, 2007).

John [T.] Gilmore, “Schoolboy patriotism and gender stereotypes in the reign of Queen Anne”, in David Money, ed., 1708: Oudenarde and Lille, A Tercentenary Commemoration in Prose and Verse (Cambridge: Bringfield’s Head Press, 2008), pp. 106-109.

John T. Gilmore, “Aethiopissae: The classical tradition, Neo-Latin verse and images of race in George Herbert and Vincent Bourne,” Classical Receptions Journal, Vol. 1 (2009), pp. 73-86.

John T. Gilmore, “ ‘Sub herili venditur Hasta’: An early eighteenth-century justification of the Slave Trade by a colonial poet”, in Yasmin Haskell and Juanita Feros Ruys, ed., Latinity and Alterity in the Early Modern Period, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Volume 360 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2010), pp. 221-239.

John T. Gilmore, “John Barclay’s ‘Camella’ poems: Ideas of race, beauty and ugliness in Renaissance Latin verse,” in Daniel Orrells, Gurminder K. Bhambra and Tessa Roynon, ed., African Athena: New Agendas (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 277-292.

John T. Gilmore, “Irus and his Jovial Crew: Representations of Beggars in Vincent Bourne and other eighteenth-century writers of Latin verse,” Rural History, Vol. 24, 1 (2013), pp. 41-57.

John T. Gilmore, “Justaque Cupidine Lucri Ardentes (‘Burning with a Just Desire for Gain’): A Barbadian Poet celebrates the Peace of Utrecht,” in Maya Feile Tomes, Adam J. Goldwyn, and Matthew Duquès, Brill’s Companion to Classics in the Early Americas (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), pp. 146-180.

Estelle Haan, Vergilius Redivivus: Studies In Joseph Addison's Latin Poetry (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Press, 2005)

Estelle Haan, Classical Romantic: Identity in the Latin Poetry of Vincent Bourne (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Press, 2007).

Estelle Haan, The Latin Poetry of Thomas Gray: Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (London: Bloomsbury, 2024)

L. B. T. Houghton and Gesine Manuwald, Neo-Latin Poetry in the British Isles (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012)

D. K. Money, The English Horace: Anthony Alsop and the Tradition of British Latin Verse (Oxford University Press, for the British Academy, 1998).

David Money, “Free Flattery or Servile Tribute? Oxford and Cambridge Commemorative Poetry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, in James Raven, Free Print and Non-Commercial Publishing since 1700 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 48-66.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• have an enhanced understanding of literary forms as cultural capital;
• have a knowledge of some of the major writers of Latin verse in the period
• have an appreciation of how Latin verse composition as a prestige genre relates to issues of race, class, and gender
• understand issues relating to translation, form, translation purposes, and intended readership
• understand the significance of material aspects of book history to the contextualisation of texts.

Interdisciplinary

It is expected that the module would appeal to some students in Classics, and this has been discussed with the Classics department -- while their preference is for the module to be based in English, due to different norms about contact hours and assessment, they are supportive and feel that it will attract some students from their department.

International

Some of the texts drawn on are by writers from former British colonies in the Caribbean and North America, including the Jamaican Francis Williams, the only Black writer from the eighteenth-century British Caribbean, whose life and work are attracting increasing attention (see, e.g., Fara Dabhoiwala's article in London Review of Books, 21 November 2024).

Subject specific skills

Enhanced critical and analytical skills

Transferable skills

Enhanced critical and analytical skills; awareness of the social functions of literary texts and genres.