Dr. James Doelman
Department of English
Brescia University College
University of Western Ontario
“A Libell, for an Epitaph”: The Parodic Epitaph in the Early Stuart Period
Department of English
Brescia University College
University of Western Ontario
“A Libell, for an Epitaph”: The Parodic Epitaph in the Early Stuart Period
--great paper, and congratulations on coining the term "Parodic Epitaphs" for the subgenre you discuss, which I'm sure will gain currency!
ReplyDeleteI thought you might enjoy the following lines from Henry King's elegy, "To the Memorie of My Ever Desired Friend D. Donne":
"...t' have had too much merit, is not safe;
For, such excesses finde no Epitaph.
At common graves we have Poetique eyes
Can melt themselves in easy Elegies,
And pin it, like the Hatchments, to the Hearse:
But at thine, Poeme, or Inscription
(Rich soule of wit, and language) we have none".
Donne, of course, figured himself as a "parodic epitaph" of "every dead thing":
" The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th'hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, ... life is shrunke,
Dead and enterr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with mee, who am their Epitaph".
--from "A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies Day"