Like the poems reprinted by Professor Donno, these establish their
identity as minor epics by the erotic subject matter of their
narration, however symbolized or moralized, and by their use of
certain rhetorical devices that came to be associated with the genre.
These include the set description of people and places; the =suasoria=,
or invitation to love; and the formal digression, sometimes in the
form of an inset tale, such as the tale of Poplar in =Mirrha= (pp.
148-155). Other rhetorical devices cultivated in the epyllion are the
long apostrophe, and the sentence or wise saying. Also, these poems
employ numerous compound epithets and far-fetched conceits. (Dom Diego
goes hunting with a "beast-dismembring blade" [p. 64], and Cinyras
incestuous bed in =The Scourge= "doth shake and quaver as they lie,/As
if it groan'd to beare the weight of sinne." [p. 271].)
The average length of these, like other Renaissance minor epics, is
about 900 lines. Although the length of Renaissance minor epics is not
rigidly prescribed, it is noteworthy that several of these poems have
almost the same number of lines. =Philos and Licia=, =Mirrha=, and =Hiren=,
for example, running to about 900 lines, vary in length by no more
than 16 lines. (=Amos and Laura=, however, the shortest with about 300
lines, is some 650 lines shorter than =The Scourge=, the longest, with
about 950.)
As well as echoing Marlowe's =Hero and Leander= and Shakespeare's =Venus
and Adonis= in particular words and phrases, these poems reveal a much
more general indebtedness to what Professor Bush has aptly called "the
twin peaks of the Ovidian tradition in England."[27] The majority
employ one of two prosodic patterns--the Marlovian couplet
popularized in =Hero and Leander=, or the six-line stanza used by Lodge
but soon after taken over by Shakespeare in =Venus and Adonis= and
thereafter associated with his poem.[28]
In addition to the couplet, a common mark of Marlovian influence in
the poems is the etiological myth, sometimes expanded into a tale.
Thus, in =Mirrha=, for instance, the growth of rare spices and perfumes
in Panchaia is explained by the story of how Hebe once spilled nectar
there (p. 147).
Comparable marks of Shakespearean influence are the aggressive female
like Mirrha, reminiscent of Shakespeare's Venus; the hunting motif in
=Dom Diego= and =Amos and Laura=, recalling Adonis' obsession with the
hunt; and the catalog of the senses in =Philos and Licia=, pp. 15-16,
and =Hiren=, stanzas 75-79, which imitates Shakespeare's =Venus and
Adonis=, ll. 427-450. Only =Mirrha= among these poems, however, makes
specific acknowledgment of a debt to Shakespeare (see p. 177).
Finally, Dom Diego's plangent laments at Ginevra's cruelty recall
Glaucus' unrestrained weeping at Scylla's cruelty in Lodge's =Scillaes
Metamorphosis=. But whereas the "piteous Nimphes" surrounding Glaucus
weep till a "pretie brooke" forms,[29] "the fayre =Oreades= pitty-moved
gerles" that comfort Dom Diego are loath to lose the "liquid pearles"
he weeps. Consequently they gather (and presumably preserve) them with
"Spunge-like Mosse" (p. 95). Lynche extends his debt to Lodge by
establishing at the end of his poem a link between Ginevra and the
Maiden he professes to love. But, whereas Lodge in the Envoy to his
poem uses Scylla on the rocks as a horrible example of what may happen
to unyielding maids, Lynche holds up Ginevra, who finally marries her
lover, as an example to be followed by the poet's disdainful Diella of
the accompanying sonnets (see p. 101).
It would probably be impossible, even if it were desirable, for any
given minor epic to follow all the conventions of the genre, or even
all its alternative conventions. Yet all the poems included here
adhere so closely to most of the important minor epic conventions that
there should be no question as to the minor epic identity of any.[30]