Editing Dodona's Grove

{{short description|Book by James Howell}}
{{italic title}}
{{EngvarB|date=January 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2015}}
[[File:Dodona's Grove, or The Vocall Forest, by James Howell (1640).jpg|thumb|Title page of the first edition of ''Dodona's Grove'' ([[Folger Shakespeare Library]])]] 

'''''Dendrologia: Dodona's Grove, or the Vocal Forest''''' was a poem by [[James Howell]] published in 1640,<ref name="moulton">{{cite book | last=Moulton | first=Charles Wells | title=1639-1729 | publisher=Moulton publishing Company | series=The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors | year=1901 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AdUcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA186 | access-date=February 3, 2021 | pages=186–187}}</ref> which launched Howell's literary career. It was published in English in multiple editions and was translated into French<ref name="howell">{{cite book | last1=Howell | first1=James | last2=Jacobs | first2=Joseph | title=Epistolae Ho-Elianae: The Familiar Letters of James Howell : Historiographer Royal to Charles II | publisher=David Nutt | year=1892 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P7ovAQAAMAAJ&pg=PR55 | access-date=February 3, 2021 | page=55}}</ref> and Latin.{{r|hansche}}

== Description ==

''Dodona's Grove'' is an allegory of Europe, particularly England, depicting events between 1603 and 1640.<ref name="hansche">{{cite book | last=Hansche | first=Maude Bingham | title=The Formative Period of English Familiar Letter-writers and Their Contribution to the English Essay | publisher=Haskell | year=1902 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JdzZIY6XRRsC&pg=PA37 | access-date=February 3, 2021 | pages=37–38}}</ref>  Dodona, in the title, refers to the [[Dodona|ancient Hellenic oracle]] of [[Zeus]] in [[Epirus]].<ref>{{cite journal | journal=The Seventeenth Century | last=Major | first=Philip | date=2010 | title='To wound an oak': the Poetics of Tree-felling at Nun Appleton | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/845502450 | volume=25 | issue=1 | issn=0268-117X | pages=143–157| id={{ProQuest|845502450}} }}</ref>

Covered in the poem are the [[Spanish match]], the [[Gunpowder Plot]], the murder of [[Thomas Overbury]], and [[John Felton (assassin)#Assassination of Buckingham|the assassination of Buckingham]].<ref>{{cite journal | journal=Huntington Library Quarterly | issn=0018-7895 | date=1937 | title=The "Gentleman's Library" in Early Virginia | last=Wright | first=Louis B. | volume=1 | page=15 | jstor=3815892 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815892}}</ref> The political criticisms in ''Dodona's Grove'' may have contributed to Howell's imprisonment in 1643.{{r|hansche}}

In the poem, plants represent prominent persons.<ref>{{cite journal | journal=The Princeton University Library Chronicle | last=McKenzie | first=Kenneth | title=Some Remarks on a Fable Collection | date=1944 | volume=5 | issue=4 | issn=0032-8456 | page=142 | doi=10.2307/26400862 | jstor=26400862 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/26400862| url-access=subscription }}</ref> The British oak tree in ''Dodona's Grove'' represents [[Stuart period|the Stuarts]].<ref>{{cite journal | journal=SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 | last=Hamrick | first=Wes | title=Trees in Anne Finch's Jacobite Poems of Retreat | date=2013 | volume=53 | issue=3 | page=542}}</ref>

== Impact ==

Historian [[Henry Hallam]]  criticized the work harshly, calling it "clumsy", "unintelligible", "dull", and "an entire failure".<ref>{{cite book | last=Hallam | first=Henry | author-link=Henry Hallam | title=Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries | publisher=A. C. Armstrong and son | issue=v. 3 | year=1880 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VfMMkGAro2wC&pg=PA376 | access-date=February 3, 2021 | page=376}}</ref> Despite its shortcomings, it is speculated to have been an influence on [[James Harrington (author)|James Harrington]]'s ''[[The Commonwealth of Oceana]]''.{{r|howell}}  Bibliographer [[Albrecht von Haller]] was tricked into including ''Dodona's Grove'' in his ''Bibliotheca Botanica''.{{r|moulton}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120331044116/http://etext.virginia.edu/kinney/small/dodona.htm Dodona's Grove]'' from ''The Abraham Cowley Text and Image Archive''

[[Category:British books]]
[[Category:1640 books]]
[[Category:Allegory]]