"Wisdom Joyned with Simplicitye": Landscapes of Charles Tomlinson

Abstract

Starting with an account of his 1994 review of the new Loeb translation of the Latin poet Martial, this article examines how Tomlinson “incorporates” the qualities of the Latin poet’s style and content in his own poetry. The importance of Ben Jonson’s debt to Martial’s sense of hospitality and grace is felt throughout Tomlinson’s poetry and this article examines in detail the way in which poems from the 1963 volume A Peopled Landscape reveal the clarity of the Augustans as cadenced through Tomlinson’s reading of William Carlos Williams. Reflections on Tomlinson’s more recent poetry focus on courtesy, liberality and the landscape which is an emblem of those qualities of ease and friendship the poet most admires.