Author: JUVENAL, Decimus Junius
Biography:
JUVENAL, Decimus Junius (c. 55-140 CE: Grafton)
From the Renaissance onwards, Juvenal, the last of the great Roman satirists, was a favourite among English translators. Almost nothing is certain about his life beyond the publication of his sixteen satires in five books between 110 and 130 CE. His subject was broadly the moral turpitude of his fellow citizens, male and female. Not especially popular in their own time, the satires eventually became admired for their moral stance as well as for their literary sophistication, and were widely taught in schools. Of the translators included here, six have separate headnotes as poets in their own right: Charles Badham, William Gifford, Francis Hodgson, Martin Madan, William Barnes Rhodes, and Edmund L. Swift, qq.v. Two do not, but they can be briefly identified. Edward Owen, the son of Frances and David Owen, was baptised at Llangurig, Montgomeryshire, Wales, on 29 Sept. 1728. From Jesus College, Oxford (BA 1749, MA 1752), he went to Warrington in Cheshire as Master of the Free Grammar School. In 1763 he took orders and in 1767 became rector of St. Helen’s, Warrington, a position he held for the rest of his life. He died there, unmarried, on 3 June 1807. Besides a Latin grammar and some sermons, his major publications were his expurgated translations of Juvenal and Persius, first Juvenal in 1785 along with an earlier Persius, and then a second edition in 1786 with Owen’s own Persius. William Heath Marsh (1770-1848), born in Norwich to Robert and Sarah (Heath) Marsh, was baptised as a Presbyterian on 28 Jan 1770, but he graduated from Corpus Christi, Cambridge (BA 1791, MA 1794) and was ordained in the Church of England. Of the several Norfolk livings that followed, the principal one was as vicar of Calthorpe (1801-48). He married Mary Leader (1773-1811) in 1804 and they had at least four children. He was buried at Lammas cemetery, Norfolk, on 8 Mar. 1848. His translation appears to have been his only book. (OCD 23 Apr. 2025; A. Grafton et al., eds, The Classical Tradition [2010]; ancestry.com 23 Apr. 2025; findmypast.com 23 Apr. 2025; CCEd 23 Apr. 2025; ODNB 23 Apr. 2025 [Owen]) HJ
Other Names:
- Juvenal