Bugbears in Apollo's Cell: Metamorphoses of Character in Drayton's Idea and Daniel's Delia

Abstract

Samuel Daniel and Michael Drayton remodel Ovid's Metamorphoses in original ways to build complex, contradictory first-person speakers for their sonnet sequences Delia and Idea, creating fresh voices to engage the reader and place the writing process on display. Daniel's and Drayton's use of Ovidian subtext in character-building relates strongly to their cultural context, including the work of other contemporary mythographers, themes appearing in contemporary narrative genres, and, in Michael Drayton's case, astrology. Drayton not only makes original semantic use of figures of Roman mythology, but also combines figures of astrology with Ovidian imagery to generate new meanings.