Politics, Patronage, and Poetics in Hobbes's Homer

Taking issue with the new orthodoxy that Hobbes set about his late-career translations of Homer in order to ventriloquize political opinions he was prevented by the processes of Restoration censorship from publishing, this article reexamines the foundations and questions the textual evidence for thi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Seventeenth century Vol. 39; no. 4; pp. 621 - 662
Main Author Raylor, Timothy
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Durham Routledge 03.07.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
17th century
Attitudes
Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)
Patronage
Philosophers
Poetics
Politics
Translation
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Summary:Taking issue with the new orthodoxy that Hobbes set about his late-career translations of Homer in order to ventriloquize political opinions he was prevented by the processes of Restoration censorship from publishing, this article reexamines the foundations and questions the textual evidence for this interpretation. Drawing on previously unexamined evidence, the article shows that Hobbes's patrons, the Cavendish family, had sponsored the recent translations of Homer by John Ogilby, and that Hobbes's work represented an attempt to correct errors and infelicities in Ogilby's work while defending Homer himself against ill-conceived attacks by modern critics such as Scaliger and Rapin.
ISSN:0268-117X
2050-4616
DOI:10.1080/0268117X.2024.2351854