Thomas Heywood and the Classical Tradition

This volume offers the first in-depth investigation of Thomas Heywoods engagement with the classics. Its introduction and twelve essays trace how the classics shaped Heywoods work in a variety of genres across a writing career of over forty years, ranging from drama, epic and epyllion, to translations, compendia and the design of a warship for Charles I. Close readings demonstrate the influence of a capaciously conceived classical tradition that included continental editions and translations of Latin and Greek texts, early modern mythographies and the medieval tradition of Troy. They attend to Heywoods thought-provoking imitations and juxtapositions of these sources, his use of myth to interrogate gender and heroism, and his turn to antiquity to celebrate and defamiliarise the theatrical or political present. Heywoods better-known works are discussed alongside critically neglected ones, making the collection valuable for undergraduates and researchers alike. -- .