John Owen (epigrammatist)

John Owen (c.1564 – c.1622/1628) was a Welsh epigrammatist, most known for his Latin epigrams, collected in his Epigrammata.

He is also cited by various Latinizations including Ioannes Owen, Joannes Oweni, Ovenus and Audoenus.

Owen was born at Plas Du, Llanarmon, near Snowdon, and was educated at Winchester College under Dr Thomas Bilson, and New College, Oxford, from where he graduated as Bachelor of Civil Law in 1590.

He was a fellow of his college from 1584 to 1591, when he became a schoolmaster, first at Trelleck, near Monmouth, and then of The King's School at Warwick around 1595. His salary was doubled to £20 per year in 1614. On his death in 1622, Owen was buried in the old St Paul's Cathedral, London, memorialised with a Latin epitaph, thanks to his countryman and relative, Bishop Williams of Lincoln, who is also said to have supported him in his later years.

Owen became distinguished for his perfect mastery of the Latin language, and for the humour, felicity and point of his epigrams. His Latin epigrams, which have both sense and wit in a high degree, gained him much applause, and were translated into English, French, German, and Spanish.

Owen had started writing epigrams while at Winchester – indeed, education there was largely devoted to the production of them – and his were good enough by the time he reached 16 years of age to be used in a ceremony held when Queen Elizabeth I paid a state visit to Sir Francis Drake on his ship at Deptford, on his return from sailing around the world.

Owen started publishing his epigrams in 1606, whereupon they met with almost instant success throughout Europe, and the Continental scholars and wits of the day used to call him "the British Martial".

Owen's Epigrammata are divided into twelve books, of which the first three were published in 1606, and the rest at four different times (1607, 1612, c. 1613, 1620). Owen frequently adapts and alters to his own purpose the lines of his predecessors in Latin verse. His epigrams proved popular for centuries after his death, appearing in numerous reprints, editions and translations.

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