SOURCE: Thesiger, Sarah. “The Orchestra of Sir John Davies and the Image of the Dance.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 277-304.

In the following excerpt, Thesiger analyzes the dance metaphor in Davies's poem Orchestra and relates it to the poem's structure and sources.

Orchestra, a poem of Dancing, was entered on the Stationers Register in June 1594, and first printed in 1596. Its author, Sir John Davies, was at the time a student and lawyer of the Middle Temple, and his poem was later summed up by his fellow student, John Hoskins, in his book Directions for Speech and Style: ‘This only trick made up J.D.'s poem of dancing; all danceth, the heavens, the elements, mens minds, commonwealths, and so by parts all danceth’.¹

The poem, which has an ingenious wit, takes the form of a dialogue between Penelope and her suitor Antinous, which, says Davies...