Ovid transfused: George Sandys' and John Dryden's translations of the poetry of Ovid's Metamorphoses

Abstract

George Sandys' 1632 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses with notes and commentary is radically different to John Dryden's translations of various tales from the Metamorphoses published between 1693 and 1700. The differences motivated an invitation from Dryden which this thesis takes up, for readers to evaluate "what is become of Ovid's Poetry, in [Sandys'] Version; whether it be not all, or the greatest part of it evaporated." The theoretical context of the translators accounted for much of their difference. Sandys' literal translation with interpretative commentary explicitly looked back to an allegorical tradition in classical poetry, and implicitly looked forward to the emerging tradition of translation as poetry in its own right. Dryden's poetic translation wholly embraced the new tradition's concern for style. Putting his theory into practice, Sandys closely translated the detail and "expression" of Ovid's original. Dryden instead translated the original's effect and "impression" on readers. The two translators employed different methods because their contemporary readers demanded and responded to different literary practices. Both translations, therefore, succeed not despite their differences but because of their differences. The complexity of Ovid's Metamorphoses recognises the multiplicity of its readership, and Sandys' and Dryden's translations realise this.