"America in George Sandy's "Ovid

HE translation of fifteen books of Ovid's Metarnorphoses by George Sandys has been called the first utterance of conscious literary spirit articulated in America.:1 circumstances of its production provides basis for this assertion. Sandys, treasurer and director of industry at Jamestown from i62I until late in i625,2 probably brought his translation of five books of Metamorphoses with him to Virginia and translated remaining ten during his hours of recreation on voyage and in colony.3 At any rate, in i626, a few months after his return to England, first edition4 appeared. Though America has been proud to claim a share in this work, exact extent and nature of share have been a real question. In a recent interesting and valuable monograph on The Literature of Virginia in Seventeenth Century,5 Professor Howard Mumford Jones gives reasons for denying it a place in genuine American literature

Art · Art history · George (robot) · Literature: history, themes, analysis

• The Art of Reading Earthquakes

  Open Access•Gerard Passannante•Renaissance Quarterly•2008

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