Clapham’s “Narcissus” (1591) and the Isle of the Virgin Queen

CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar Jay Reed (Professor, Classics and Comparative Literature, Brown University) considers John Clapham’s Latin poem Narcissus (published in London in 1591) which heavily embroiders Ovid’s ancient version of the myth with such later European traditions as the allegory of love and the Virgin Queen. This poem of the English Renaissance, as a product of its time and place, demands to be read with and against the vernacular traditions that it subsumes into its highly classicizing Latin.