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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Philosophical poetry is seldom original; and ever since the assertion by Alexander Dalrymple, in the eighteenth century, that “Sir John Davies' poem on the Immortality of the Soul is chiefly taken from Nemesius,” there has been speculation as to the source of that once popular work. Grosart, in editing Davies' poems, rejected Dalrymple's statement as “absolutely untrue, an utter delusion,” and claimed for his author the merit of “deep and original thought.” But other critics have generally ignored this claim and suggested various sources for the poet's inspiration. Courthope again named Nemesius as the most probable. In a volume devoted exclusively to the study of this poem, Professor E. H. Sneath maintained that Davies was influenced by four thinkers: Aristotle, Cicero, Nemesius and Calvin. A German scholar more recently denies any influence of Nemesius, but thinks Davies derived his ideas from a study of Aristotle's De Anima modified by a reading of religious commentators, notably Thomas Aquinas. The latest and best suggestion, although it has been presented only in a brief and casual manner, is, that Nosce Teipsum is a re-statement of the Neo-Platonic tradition which permeated Christian thought in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
1 Nichols, John. Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, London (1822). IV, 549-550.
2 The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies, London (1876). Memorial-Introduction, lix-ff.
3 History of English Poetry. III, 57-8.
4 Philosophy in Poetry, New York (1903).
5 Seemann, Margarete, Sir John Davies, Sein Leben und Seine Werke. Wiener Beiträge, Vol. XLI (1913). pp. 23-24.
6 Cambridge History of English Literature, VII, 313-14. Mary Paton Ramsay (Les Doctrines Médiévales chez Donne, Oxford (1917). pp. 12 and 290) mistakenly groups Donne and Davies together. See my review of her book, Journ. of Eng. and Germ. Philol., April, 1922. Dr. Mabel Dodge Holmes, in her thesis, The Poet as Philosopher, Philadelphia (1921), hastily concludes that “nowhere” in the poem “is there the least sign of any consultation of the Platonic philosophy” and speaks of the “adoption of Aristotle and indifference to Plato” in its fundamental thought. (pp. 38-39.) John Smith Harrison, in Platonism in English Poetry, New York (1903), does not discuss Davies.
7 De Anima, II, 6-9.
8 Davies, ed. cit. I, 29.
9 Ibid. I, 41.
10 See Windelband, History of Philosophy, trans. Tufts, N. Y. (1893), p. 276. Max Dessoir, Geschichte der Neueren Deutschen Psychologie, Berlin (1902). I, 11. Siebeck, H., Die Anfänge der Neueren Psychologie in der Scholastik in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und phil. Kritik, Vol. 39 (1888), 188-191.
11 An illustration of the ultimate indebtedness of Davies to Augustine and Plato is afforded by his theory of the soul's “contraries”: Davies, ed. cit., I, 97. Cf. Plato, The Republic, Book X, and Augustine, De Immortalitate Animae, Chap. XI.
12 For instance, Nicolas of Cusa could hardly be suggested as a source for Davies. But there are some striking resemblances in thought and illustration between them. See Scharpft, A., Des Cardinals und Bischofs Nicolas von Cusa wichtigste Schriften in deutschen Uebersetzung, Freiburg (1862). Cf. p. 223 with Davies, I, 63; p. 462-3 with Davies, I, 30, 31-2, 34; p. 464 with Davies, I, 100 2, 105.
13 It was reprinted in 1582, 1583 and 1590. A Latin translation appeared in 1583 and was frequently reprinted.
14 My references are all to the English translation of 1594.
15 Cf. Davies, ed. cit. I, 82-3. Elsewhere Davies speaks of “these light vaine persons” (p. 93), “impious wits” (p. 95), “these Epicures” (p. 99), “this crue” (p. 108), “these vaine spirits” (p. 110).
16 Primaudaye, pp. 10-12.
17 See De Immortalitate Animae, Chap. XI
18 See also Donne's First Anniversary, II. 451-ff.
19 Spenser uses a similar argument in defense of the Land of Faery, in the introducton to Book II, Faerie Queene.
