SOURCE: Powles, Marie A. “Dramatic Significance in the ‘Figures’ Prefacing Each Book of Sandys' Translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis.” The University of Dayton Review Vol. 10, no. 3 (summer 1974): 39-45.

In the following essay, Powles examines the first plate preceding the title page of the 1640 edition of Sandys' Ovid, explaining the symbolic content of the illustration and showing how translator, artist, and engraver worked to present Sandys's version of Ovid's work in a unique way—as a play to be staged and interpreted by the gods.

Although it is probably commonplace to suggest that the truly representative figures of any given literary period are not necessarily those normally regarded as possessors of extraordinary powers of creative ability, the truth of this statement is unquestionably borne out when we consider the grace of expression, imaginative creativeness and overall productivity of George Sandys, poet, translator, traveller and pioneer.¹ Certainly those usually regarded as...