Bugbears in Apollo's Cell': Metamorphoses of Character in Drayton's Idea and Daniel's Delia (Michael Drayton and Samuel Daniel‪)‬

I Literary subtext plays an important part in the generation of meaning. It is a device supremely adaptable to the reader: if it goes unnoticed, the text can still be enjoyed at face value; once recognized, it allows the text to achieve its full effect. Studies of Ovidian echoes in major Renaissance sonnet sequences are a fertile field. Nevertheless, Michael Drayton's and Samuel Daniel's play with Ovid in Idea and Delia, often unconventional and interesting, lacks thorough critical attention. (2) In this essay, I hope to offer a fresh perspective into character building in sonnet sequences by showcasing Daniel's and Drayton's creative use of Ovid and relating it to the poets' cultural context--the work of contemporary mythographers, themes of contemporary narrative genres and, in Drayton's case, astrology--a pursuit relevant to this discussion on account of its semantic use of figures of Roman mythology.