John Owen (epigrammatist)
John Owen (c.1564 – c.1622/1628) was a Welsh epigrammatist, most known for his Latin epigrams, collected in his Epigrammata.
He is also cited by various Latinizations including Ioannes Owen, Joannes Oweni, Ovenus and Audoenus.
Life, education, and career
He was born at Plas Du, Llanarmon,[1] near Snowdon, and was educated at Winchester School under Dr Thomas Bilson, and New College, Oxford, from where he graduated as Bachelor of Civil Law in 1590.
He was a fellow of his college from 1584 to 1591, when he became a schoolmaster, first at Trelleck, near Monmouth, and then of The King's School at Warwick around 1595. His salary was doubled to £20 per year in 1614. On his death in 1622, John Owen was buried in the old St Paul's Cathedral, London, memorialized with a Latin epitaph, thanks to his countryman and relative, Bishop Williams of Lincoln, who is also said to have supported him in his later years.
Epigrams
He became distinguished for his perfect mastery of the Latin language, and for the humour, felicity and point of his epigrams. His Latin epigrams, which have both sense and wit in a high degree, gained him much applause, and were translated into English, French, German, and Spanish.
John Owen had started writing epigrams while at Winchester – indeed, education there was largely devoted to the production of them – and his were good enough by the time he reached 16 years of age to be used in a ceremony held when Queen Elizabeth I paid a state visit to Sir Francis Drake on his ship at Deptford, on his return from sailing around the world.
John Owen started publishing his epigrams in 1606, whereupon they met with almost instant success throughout Europe, and the Continental scholars and wits of the day used to call him “the British Martial”.
Epigrammata
Owen’s Epigrammata are divided into twelve books, of which the first three were published in 1606, and the rest at four different times (1607, 1612, c. 1613, 1620). Owen frequently adapts and alters to his own purpose the lines of his predecessors in Latin verse. His epigrams proved popular for centuries after his death, appearing in numerous reprints, editions and translations.
Books
The numbering of the books can be confusing. They were originally published as 10 books in 4 volumes, with books numbered from 1 in each volume. There are thus 4 books entitled "Book I", distinguished by whom they were dedicated to. Later editions collected all volumes in one, numbering the books sequentially. Books XI and XII are later additions, in the 1620 Leipzig edition.[2]
Book XI is a collection of 128 moralizing epigrams, titled Monosticha Quaedam Ethica et Politica Veterum Sapientum, and are not due to Owen: they are from the Disticha de Moribus of Michel Verino.[2][3][4]
Book XII is a collection of fragments by Owen.
The original 4 volumes are:[2]
- Ioannis Audoeni Epigrammatum libri III, London, 1606 (dedicated to Lady Mary Neville, reprinted twice in 1607)
- Epigrammatum Ioannis Owen…liber singularis, London, 1607 (dedicated to Lady Arabella Stuart)
- Epigrammatum Ioannis Owen…Libri Tres, London, 1612 (the first two Books dedicated to Henry, Prince of Wales, the third Book dedicated to Charles, Duke of York)
- Epigrammatum Joannis Owen…libri Tres, London, 1613 (?) (three Books, dedicated respectively to Sir Edward Noel, Sir William Sedley, and Sir Roger Owen)
Tempora mutantur
The most popular of his epigrams[5] is a variant of the traditional Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis. ("Times change, and we change with them.") Owen's version reads in full:[6][7][8]
“Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis:
Quomodo? fit semper tempore pejor homo.” "How's that? The man (mankind) always gets worse with time"—(Lib. I. ad Edoardum Noel, epig. 58.)
The popularity of his Epigrammata means that this adage is at times attributed to him, and Joseph Haydn likely nicknamed his Symphony No. 64 Tempora mutantur based on Epigrammata.[5][9]
Editions and translations
There are editions of the Epigrammata by Elzevir and by Didot; the best is that edited by Renouard (2 vols., Paris, 1795).
Translations into English, either in whole or in part, were made by John Vicars in Epigrams of that most wittie and worthie epigrammatist Mr. Iohn Owen, Gentleman (1619); by Thomas Pecke, in his Parnassi Puerperium (1659); and by Thomas Harvey in The Latine epigrams of John Owen (1677), which is the most complete. La Torre, the Spanish epigrammatist, owed much to Owen, and translated his works into Spanish in 1674. French translations of the best of Owen’s epigrams were published by A. L. Lebrun (1709) and by Kerivalant (1819).
Conflict with the Roman Catholic Church
He was a staunch Protestant, and could not resist the temptation of turning his wit against the Roman Catholic Church, which resulted in Epigrammata being placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1654, and led a rich old uncle of the Roman Catholic communion to cut him out of his will.
Notes
- ↑ Dictionary of Welsh Biography
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Introduction to Hypertext critical edition of the Epigrammata of John Owen (Ioannis Audoenus) by Dana F. Sutton, The University of California, Irvine, 1999
- ↑ Alphonse Willems, Les Elzevier (Brussels, 1880) 78
- ↑ J. J. Enck, “John Owen’s Epigrammata” (Harvard Library Bulletin 3, 1949) 431–4
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Foster, Jonathan (1975). "The Tempora Mutantur Symphony of Joseph Haydn". Haydn Yearbook 9: 328.
- ↑ Book VIII, Latin
- ↑ Book VIII, English
- ↑ Note on source
- ↑ Schroeder, David P. Haydn and the Enlightenment. p. 69.
References
- Warwick School: A History (2004) by G N Frykman and E J Hadley. ISBN 0-946095-46-9
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "OWEN, JOHN". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press, p. 391–392
External links
- Hypertext critical edition of the Epigrammata of John Owen (Ioannis Audoenus) by Dana F. Sutton, The University of California, Irvine, 1999]
- John Owen’s Epigrams, in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume IV, Prose and Poetry from Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton. Chapter XIII. Robert Burton, John Barclay and John Owen, Section 9, John Owen’s Epigrams: by Edward Bensly, M.A., Trinity College; Professor of Latin, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth