This article is about changing canons of Renaissance English poetry (i.e. in the 16th and early 17th century). While the canon has always been in some form of flux, it is only towards the late 20th century that concerted efforts were made to challenge the canon and the very concept of a canon. Questions that once did not even have to be made, such as where to put the limitations of periods, what geographical areas to include, what genres to include, what writers and what kinds of writers to include, are now central to writers of histories, anthology editors, curriculum designers, and individual teachers and learners. For example the customary exclusion of women writers has been successfully challenged over the last twenty years. The Western canon is a canon of books and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that has allegedly been highly influential in shaping Western culture. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999...

The canonical canon

Who some of the central figures of the Elizabethan canon are, has long been established. They are Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and John Donne. This list is so established that there seem to be few attempts to change it, simply because the cultural importance of these six is so great that even re-evaluations on grounds of literary merit has not dared to dislodge them from the curriculum. For this reason the challenges to the canon that have been made during the last century have mainly been concerned with the so-called "minor" poets. This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Philip Sidney. ... This article is about the English dramatist. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... For other persons of the same name, see Ben Johnson (disambiguation). ... For the Welsh courtier and diplomat, see Sir John Donne. ...

This distinction between "major" and "minor" poets, and between "major" and "minor" works by individual poets, is one of the mainstays of the canonical tradition. Its aim can be summed up in the words of F. T. Palgrave who in his The Golden Treasury aimed to pass over "extreme or temporary phases in style" in favour of "something neither modern, nor ancient, but true in all ages". This anachronistic ideal has curiously enough been prevalent throughout two hundred years of literary history whose ostensible goal has been to describe the period. Francis Turner Palgrave (September 28, 1824 - October 24, 1897) was a British critic and poet. ... The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry which attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/hearer/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques used in the communication of these pieces. ...

Canons before the 20th century

Donne, Ben Jonson, and Spenser were major influences on 17th century poetry. Spenser was the primary English influence on John Milton; while Donne was imitated by the Metaphysical poets and Jonson by the Cavalier poets. Both Donne and Jonson influenced the leading poet of the late 17th century, John Dryden. However, Dryden condemned the Metaphysical tendency in his criticism. Metaphysical poetry fell further into disrepute in the 18th century, ^[1] while the interest in Renaissance verse was rekindled through the scholarship of Thomas Warton and others. The Lake Poets and subsequent Romantics were well-read in Renaissance poetry; Coleridge admired Donne, which is slightly unusual for this period. However, the canon of Renaissance poetry was formed only in the Victorian period, with anthologies like Palgrave's Golden Treasury. A fairly representative idea of the "Victorian canon" is given by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's Oxford Book of English Verse (1919). The poems from this period are largely songs; apart from the major names, one sees the two pioneers Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey, and a scattering of poems by other writers of the period. The dominant figure is Anonymous. Some poems, such as Thomas Sackville's Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates, were highly regarded (and therefore "in the canon") but omitted as non-lyric. For other persons named John Milton, see John Milton (disambiguation). ... The metaphysical poets were a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them. ... Cavalier poets is a broad description of a school of poets, who came from the classes that supported King Charles I during the English Civil War. ... John Dryden John Dryden (August 19 {August 9 O.S.}, 1631 - May 12 {May 1 O.S.}, 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright, who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles... Thomas Warton, the Younger Thomas Warton (January 9, 1728 – May 21, 1790) was an English literary historian and critic, as well as a poet. ... The Lake Poets all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. ... The Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics is a popular anthology of English poetry, originally selected for publication by Francis Turner Palgrave in 1861. ... Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (November 21, 1863 - May 12, 1944) was a British writer, who published under the pen name of Q. Born in Cornwall, he was educated at Newton Abbot College, at Clifton College, and Trinity College, Oxford and later became a lecturer there. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 - October 6, 1542) was a poet and Ambassador in the service of Henry VIII. He first entered Henrys service in 1516 as Sewer Extraordinary, and the same year he began studying at St Johns College of the University of Cambridge. ... Thomas Sackville may be Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, English statesman, poet and playwright Thomas Sackville (politician), British Conservative MP. This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Mirror for Magistrates is a collection of English poems from the Tudor period by various authors which retell the lives and the tragic ends of various historical figures. ...

The canon was also redistributed after Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy from 1860 formulated a view of the Renaissance as an aristocratic court culture. Consequently, later anthologies such as Arthur Symons's A Sixteenth-Century Anthology from 1905 focused on lyric poetry at the expense of other genres, a preference which remained throughout the first half of the 20th century.^[2] Jacob Burckhardt in 1892 Jacob Burckhardt (May 25, 1818, Basel, Switzerland – August 8, 1897, Basel) was a Swiss historian of art and culture, fields which he helped found. ... 1860 is the leap year starting on Sunday. ... Arthur Symons (February 28, 1865 - January 22, 1945), was a British poet and critic. ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar). ...

T. S. Eliot's changes to the canon

T. S. Eliot's many essays on Elizabethan subjects were mainly concerned with the drama, but there are attempts to bring back long-forgotten poets to general attention, for example Sir John Davies, whose cause he championed in an article in The Times Literary Supplement in 1926 (republished in On Poetry and Poets, 1957). Eliot's writing did much to bring the metaphysical poets, Donne in particular, back into favour. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ... Sir John Davies (April,1569 - 8 December 1626) was an English poet and lawyer. ... The Times Literary Supplement (or TLS) is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar). ... The metaphysical poets were a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them. ...

Yvor Winters's Alternative Canon of Elizabethan poetry

The American critic Yvor Winters suggested in 1939, an alternative canon of Elizabethan poetry^[3]. In this canon he excludes the famous representatives of the Petrarchan school of poetry, represented by John Skelton, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser, and instead turns his eye to an anti-Petrarchan movement, which he claims has been overlooked and undervalued. The most underrated member of this movement he deems to have been George Gascoigne (1525-1577), who "deserves to be ranked...among the six or seven greatest lyric poets of the century, and perhaps higher"^[4]. Other members were Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), Barnabe Googe (1540-1594), and George Turberville (1540-1610). Arthur Yvor Winters (October 17, 1900 - January 26, 1968) was an American literary critic and poet, noted as a critic of poetry and embroiled in controversy. ... Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Petrarchan (also Petrarchanism, Petrarchian) - Refers to a concept of unattainable love first developed by Italian humanist and writer, Francesco Petrarch. ... John Skelton (c. ... Philip Sidney. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... George Gascoigne George Gascoigne (c. ... Events January 21 - The Swiss Anabaptist Movement was born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptized each other in the home of Manzs mother on Neustadt-Gasse, Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union. ... Events March 17 - formation of the Cathay Company to send Martin Frobisher back to the New World for more gold May 28 - Publication of the Bergen Book, better known as the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, one of the Lutheran confessional writings. ... This article is about the sixteenth-century explorer. ... Events April - War between Henry II of France and Emperor Charles V. Henry invades Lorraine and captures Toul, Metz, and Verdun. ... For a bill proposed in USA in 1998, see Bill 1618. ... Thomas Nashe (November 1567–1600?) was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, poet and satirist. ... Events The Duke of Alva arrives in the Netherlands with Spanish forces to suppress unrest there. ... Events February 8 - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, rebels against Elizabeth I of England - revolt is quickly crushed February 25 - Robert Devereux beheaded Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrives in China Bad harvest in Russia due to rainy summer Dutch troops drive Portuguese from Málaga Battle of Kinsale, Ireland Births... Barnabe Googe (June 11, 1540 - February, 1594), English poet, son of Robert Googe, recorder of Lincoln, was born at Alvingham, Lincolnshire. ... Year 1540 was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. ... Events February 27 - Henry IV is crowned King of France at Rheims. ... George Turberville, or Turbervile (1540? - before 1597) was an English poet, second son of Nicholas Turberville of Whitchurch, Dorset, belonged to an old Dorsetshire family, the DUrbervilles of Mr Thomas Hardys novel, Tess of the dUrbervilles. ... Year 1540 was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. ... // Events January 7 - Galileo Galilei discovers the Galilean moons of Jupiter. ...

Characteristic of this movement is that a poem has "a theme usually broad, simple, and obvious, even tending toward the proverbial, but usually a theme of some importance, humanly speaking; a feeling restrained to the minimum required by the subject; a rhetoric restrained to a similar minimum, the poet being interested in his rhetoric as a means of stating his matter as economically as possible, and not, as are the Petrarchans, in the pleasures of rhetoric for its own sake. There is also in the school a strong tendency towards aphoristic statement"^[5].

This attempt at rewriting a canon should not be seen as a challenge to the concept of the canon as such, but rather as an attempt to emulate T. S. Eliot's modernist revisions of the tradition. As with Eliot's canon, it may for today's reader say more about Winters and his time than about Elizabethan literature, but the list of poems he names among the best should still be of interest to the student who has already read the established, "Petrarchan," canon. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ...

Winters compares the situation in Renaissance studies with that of the canon of eighteenth century poets, where he claims, "the two greatest poetic talents of the period, those of Samuel Johnson and of Charles Churchill" were obscured by the rising Romantic school and such poets as Thomas Gray and William Collins. The poems he mentions by Johnson and Churchill have been added to the list below. (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ... For other persons named Samuel Johnson, see Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). ... Charles Churchill Charles Churchill (February, 1731 - November 4, 1764), was an English poet and satirist. ... Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (December 26, 1716 – July 30, 1771), was an English poet, classical scholar and professor of history at Cambridge University. ... William Collins (1721 - 1759), English poet, was educated at Winchester and Oxford, moved to London in the 1740s and spent the last years of his life in Chichester. ...

An alternative canon

These are some of the poems Winters recommends (in general the ones Winters considers to be the best are put first).

From the anti-Petrarchan school:

• Sir Thomas Wyatt: "Tagus Farewell", "Is it possible", "I abide and abide", "They flee from me", "It may be good", "Your looks so often cast", "Disdain me not", "Perdie I said it not", "If thou wilt mightly be", "I have sought long", "And wilt thou leave me thus", "It was my choice", "Forget not yet", "What should I say", "Hate whom ye list", "Sighs are my food", "Madam withouten many words", "Within my breast I never thought it gain", "It burneth yet, alas!", "Speak thou and speed", "Under this stone" (5, See also under the Petrarcan school below).
• Thomas, Lord Vaux: "I loath that I did love", "When I look back", "When all is done and said".
• Nicholas Grimald: "Mirror of matrons".
• George Gascoigne: "Gascoigne's Woodmanship", "Gascoigne's De Profundis", "Gascoigne's Memories" II and III, "The Constancy of a Lover", "Dan Bartholomew's Dolorous Discourses" (from Dan Bartholomew of Bath), "In Praise of a Gentlewoman Who though She Was not very Fair Yet Was She as Hard-Favored as Might Be" (1).
• Barnabe Googe: "Of Nicholas Grimald", "To Dr. Balle", "To Mistress A.", "To the Translation of Palingenius", "Of Mistress D. S.", "Of Money", "Coming Homeward Out of Spain".
• George Turberville: "To the Roving Pirate", "To One that Had Little Wit", "To an Old Gentlewoman Who Painted Her Face", "Of the Clock and the Cock", "That All Things Are as They Are Used".
• Sir Walter Raleigh: "The Lie", "What is our life", "Even such is time" (2).
• Jasper Heywood: "My friend if thou wilt credit me in ought".
• Thomas Nashe: "In Time of Pestilence", "Autumn hath all the fruitful summer's treasure".

From the Petrarchan school (excluding those in footnotes): Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – October 6, 1542) was a poet and Ambassador in the service of Henry VIII. He first entered Henrys service in 1516 as Sewer Extraordinary, and the same year he began studying at St Johns College of the University of Cambridge. ... View over Tejo River from Almourol Castle in Portugal (May 2005). ... Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowdon (1510 - October, 1556), English poet, was the eldest son of Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux. ... Nicholas Grimald (or Grimoald) (1519-1562), English poet, was born in Huntingdonshire, the son probably of Giovanni Baptista Grimaldi, who had been a clerk in the service of Empson and Dudley in the reign of Henry VII. He was educated at Christs College, Cambridge, where he took his B... George Gascoigne George Gascoigne (c. ... De profundis (literally from the depths) are the first two words of the Latin translation of psalm 129 (130), one of the seven Penitential Psalms (psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143): De profundis clamavi ad te Domine (From the depths, I cried to you, Lord!) De profundis... Barnabe Googe (June 11, 1540 - February, 1594), English poet, son of Robert Googe, recorder of Lincoln, was born at Alvingham, Lincolnshire. ... Nicholas Grimald (or Grimoald) (1519-1562), English poet, was born in Huntingdonshire, the son probably of Giovanni Baptista Grimaldi, who had been a clerk in the service of Empson and Dudley in the reign of Henry VII. He was educated at Christs College, Cambridge, where he took his B... George Turberville, or Turbervile (1540? - before 1597) was an English poet, second son of Nicholas Turberville of Whitchurch, Dorset, belonged to an old Dorsetshire family, the DUrbervilles of Mr Thomas Hardys novel, Tess of the dUrbervilles. ... This article is about the sixteenth-century explorer. ... Jasper Heywood (1553 - January 9, 1598), son of John Heywood, who translated into English three plays of Seneca, the Troas (1559), the Thyestes (1560) and Hercules Furens (1561). ... Thomas Nashe (November 1567–1600?) was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, poet and satirist. ...

• Sir Thomas Wyatt: "My lute, awake", "All heavy minds", "Comfort thyself", "Lo what it is to love", "Leave then to slander love", "Ah, my heart, what aileth thee", and "Whoso list to hunt" (as the only interesting sonnet) (2).
• Sir Fulke Greville: "Down in the depths of my iniquity", Sonnets i, vii, xii, xxii, xliv, lii, xliv, lii, lvi from Caelica, Epitaph to Sidney.
• Sir Philip Sidney: "Who hath his fancy pleased", "Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth", "Only joy, now here you are", "O you that hear this voice", "Who is it that this dark night", "The nightingale as soon as April bringeth", "Ring out your bells", "What tongue can her perfection tell" , sonnets xxxi, xxxix, xli, lxxiv, lxxxiv, xcviii, xcix, cv, cix, cx from Astrophel and Stella (10, all from Astrophel and Stella).
• Thomas Morley: "Ladies, you see time flieth", "No, no, Nigella!".
• Samuel Daniel: "Beauty, sweet love".
• William Shakespeare: Sonnets 66, 116, 129, 146 (4).
• Thomas Campion: "Now winter nights enlarge", "When thou must home to shades of underground", "Shall I come, sweet love, to thee", "Sleep, angry beauty", "There is a garden in her face", "Thou art not fair for all thy red and white", What then is love but morning", "Whether men do laugh or weep" (3).
• Ben Jonson: "To Heaven", "Though beauty be the mark of praise", "Where dost thou careless lie", "High-spirited friend", "From death and dark oblivion, near the same", "False world, good night", "Good and Great God, can I not think of Thee", "To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name", "This morning, timely rapt with holy fire", To Charis I & II, "The Hour Glass", "My Picture Left in Scotland", "Joy, joy to mortals the rejoicing fires" from Love's Triumph through Callipolis, "Drink to me only with thine eyes", "Come, my Celia", "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair" (6).
• John Donne: "Valediction of His Name in a Window", "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", Holy Sonnet No. 1 (2).
• Anonymous: "Come away, come, sweet love" (from England's Helicon).

Winters also mentions these poems from the Eighteenth century as the best of that century: Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – October 6, 1542) was a poet and Ambassador in the service of Henry VIII. He first entered Henrys service in 1516 as Sewer Extraordinary, and the same year he began studying at St Johns College of the University of Cambridge. ... This article is about the Elizabethan author. ... Philip Sidney. ... The 1591 text of Astrophel and Stella Likely composed in the 1980s by Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella is the first of the famous English sonnet sequences, and contains 108 sonnets and 11 songs. ... Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. ... Samuel Daniel (1562 – October 14, 1619) was an English poet and historian. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Thomas Campion, sometimes Campian (February 12, 1567 – March 1, 1620) was an English composer, poet and physician. ... For other persons of the same name, see Ben Johnson (disambiguation). ... For the Welsh courtier and diplomat, see Sir John Donne. ... (17th century - 18th century - 19th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800. ...

• Samuel Johnson: "Prologue to Comus" and "Prologue to A Word to the Wise"
• Charles Churchill: "Dedication to Warburton"

For other persons named Samuel Johnson, see Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). ... In Greek mythology, Comus or Komus is the god of festivity, revels and nocturnal dalliances. ... Hugh Kelly (1739 - February 3, 1777) was an Irish dramatist and poet. ... Charles Churchill Charles Churchill (February, 1731 - November 4, 1764), was an English poet and satirist. ...

Canons today

Both Eliot and Winters were very much in favour of the canon as such and they let its timeless ideals go uncommented. Towards the end of the 20th century however, the canon was increasingly under fire, both by those who wished to expand it to include for example women writers, and by those who wished to abolish it altogether. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999...

Harold Bloom's Western canon

Harold Bloom's version of the Western canon includes the poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia and Astrophel and Stella, Fulke Greville's poems, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene and "minor" poems, the poems of Sir Walter Ralegh, Christopher Marlowe, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, William Shakespeare, Thomas Campion, John Donne and Ben Jonson. It will be noted that this list is very much author-centred, rather than work-centred, including, as it does, every poem by a relatively little-known poet like Drayton, but not a single one by George Gascoigne. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Western canon is a canon of books and art (and specifically one with very loose boundaries) that has allegedly been highly influential in shaping Western culture. ... Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 - October 6, 1542) was a poet and Ambassador in the service of Henry VIII. He first entered Henrys service in 1516 as Sewer Extraordinary, and the same year he began studying at St Johns College of the University of Cambridge. ... Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 – January 19, 1547) was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. ... Philip Sidney. ... The Countess of Pembrokes Arcadia, also known simply as The Arcadia is by far Sir Philip Sidneys most ambitious work. ... The 1591 text of Astrophel and Stella Likely composed in the 1980s by Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella is the first of the famous English sonnet sequences, and contains 108 sonnets and 11 songs. ... This article is about the Elizabethan author. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Una and the Lion by Briton Rivière The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser, published first in three books in 1590, and later in six books in 1596. ... Alternatively, Professor Walter Raleigh was a scholar and author circa 1900. ... This article is about the English dramatist. ... Drayton, 1628 Michael Drayton (1563 – December 23, 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. ... Samuel Daniel (1562 – October 14, 1619) was an English poet and historian. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Thomas Campion, sometimes Campian (February 12, 1567 – March 1, 1620) was an English composer, poet and physician. ... For the Welsh courtier and diplomat, see Sir John Donne. ... For other persons of the same name, see Ben Johnson (disambiguation). ... George Gascoigne George Gascoigne (c. ...

Some anthologies

The preface to the Blackwell anthology of Renaissance Literature from 2003 acknowledges the importance of online access to literary texts on the selection of what to include, meaning that the selection can be made on basis of functionality rather than representativity"^[6]. This anthology has made its selection based on three principles. One is "unabashedly canonical", meaning that Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson have been given the space prospective users would expect. A second principle is "non-canonical", giving women writers such as Anne Askew, Elizabeth Cary, Emilia Lanier, Martha Moulsworth, and Lady Mary Wroth a representative selection. It also includes texts that may not be representative of the qualitatively best efforts of Renaissance literature, but of the quantitatively most numerous texts, such as homilies and erotica. A third principle has been thematic, so that the anthology aims to include texts that bring light on issues of special interest to contemporary scholars. The name Blackwell can refer to many places, people, and things. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Anne Askew (1521 - 16 July 1546) was an English member of the Reformed Church who was persecuted as a heretic and then burned at the stake. ... Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (nee Cary) (1822 - 1907) was a U.S. educator. ... Aemilia Lanyer, or Emilia Lanier (1569-1645) was the first Englishwoman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611). ... Lady Mary Wroth (1586–1652) was an English poet of the Renaissance. ...

The Blackwell anthology is still firmly organised round authors, however. A different strategy has been observed by The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse from 1992"^[7]. Here the texts are organised according to topic, under the headings The Public World, Images of Love, Topographies, Friends, Patrons and the Good Life, Church, State and Belief, Elegy and Epitaph, Translation, Writer, Language and Public. It is arguable that such an approach is more suitable for the interested reader than for the student. While the two anthologies are not directly comparable, since the Blackwell anthology also includes prose, and the Penguin goes up to 1659, it is telling that while the larger Blackwell anthology contains work by 48 poets, seven of which are women, the Penguin anthology contains 374 poems by 109 poets, including 13 women and one poet each in Welsh Sîon Phylip and Irish Eochaidh Ó Heóghusa. Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... // Events May 25 - Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth. ...

References

1. ^ "Life of Cowley," in Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets
2. ^ David Norbrook. Preface to The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659. London: Penguin Books, 2005: xxiii
3. ^ Poetry, LII (1939, pp. 258-72, excerpted in Paul. J. Alpers (ed): Elizabethan Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
4. ^ Poetry, LII (1939, pp. 258-72, excerpted in Paul. J. Alpers (ed): Elizabethan Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967: 98
5. ^ Poetry, LII (1939, pp. 258-72, excerpted in Paul. J. Alpers (ed): Elizabethan Poetry. Modern Essays in Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967: 95
6. ^ Michael Payne & John Hunter (eds). Renaissance Literature: an anthology. Oxford: Blackell, 2003, ISBN 0-631-19897-0: xix
7. ^ David Norbrook & H. R. Woudhuysen (eds.): The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse. London: Penguin Books, 1992, ISBN 0-14-042346-X

It has been suggested that Penguin Modern Poets, Penguin Great Ideas be merged into this article or section. ...

External links

• Brown University Women Writers Project
• Renaissance writers at Perseus
• Project Gutenberg