Was Thomas Lodge Also Misodiaboles?. (11th January 2017) - Maude, Nancy Peters
Abstract: In 1596, John Harington scandalized Elizabethan society with his jesting treatise on 'homely' topics, A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, Called the Metamorphosis of Ajax . In his wake, another author writing anonymously as 'Misodiaboles' penned Ulysses upon Ajax, a ribald retort that sharply attacked the New Discourse as indecent and Harington himself as lacking discretion. Misodiaboles and Ulysses have been largely forgotten in modern times, with the author's identity unknown. This article presents evidence attributing authorship of Ulysses to Thomas Lodge. The evidence for attribution is varied: textual autobiographical clues from Ulysses that match Lodge's life; Lodge's connection with the publisher of Ulysses, and Harington's allusion thereto; multiple literary and stylistic correlations between Ulysses and Lodge's known works. Ulysses, if added to Lodge's literary canon, fills a gap (in terms of style and content) between Lodge's earlier work and what some critics view as his finest prose pamphlet, the streetwise satire, Wits Miserie, and the World's Madnesse . It also opens a window unto a heretofore unknown literary quarrel between two major writers of the era, Harington and Lodge.