The Epigram in England, 1590-1640

The Poetics of Exile: Gulielmus Laurus the Recusant

“…Thomas More was among the earliest English writers to write epigrams influenced by Martial, and Thomas Parkhurst, bishop of Norwich, invoked More's reputation as a writer as the precedent for his own publication of his Ludicra in 1573. 38 More's contemporary and friend John Leland also wrote epigrams, which were eventually printed in 1589. However, it is the Scottish neo-Latinist George Buchanan (1505-1582) who may be particularly relevant to Laurus, since his epigrams, first published in 1584, were very widely read by contemporaries, and many of them pointed their satire at Catholics: Laurus, similarly, aims many of his poems at Protestants and Protestantism, so he may be responding to Buchanan's shifting of the subject-matter of the epigram from bawdry and character assassination to religious satire.…”