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. Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (c. ... Philip Sidney Sir Philip Sidney (November 30, 1554 – October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Ages most prominent figures. ... An anonymous portrait, often believed to show Christopher Marlowe. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Benjamin Jonson (circa June 11, 1572 – August 6, 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. ... John Donne John Donne (pronounced Dun; 1572 – March 31, 1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, the representative of the so-called metaphysical poets of the period, though the term itself came after his death. ...

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 ahistorical 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. Moreover, some highly-regarded poems, like Thomas Sackville's Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates, were highly regarded (and therefore "in the canon") though they were left out as non-lyric. (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... John Milton, English poet John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, best-known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. ... 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 9, 1631 – May 12, 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known as the Age of Dryden. ... Thomas Warton (January 9, 1728 - May 21, 1790) was an English academic and poet, holder of the title of Poet Laureate from 1785. ... 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. ... 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for 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. ...

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 on One thousand Swiss francs banknote Jacob Burckhardt (May 25, 1818–August 8, 1897) was a Swiss historian of art and culture. ... 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 (see link for 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 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 an American (naturalised British) poet, dramatist and literary critic, whose works, such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, and Four Quartets, are considered defining achievements of twentieth century Modernist poetry. ... 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. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the 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 Petrarcan school of poetry, represented by John Skelton, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser, and instead turns his eye to an anti-Petrarcan movement, which he claims has been overlooked and undervalued. The most notable 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. ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... From the c. ... John Skelton (c. ... Philip Sidney Sir Philip Sidney (November 30, 1554 – October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Ages most prominent figures. ... Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (c. ... 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. ... Walter Raleigh, by Nicholas Hilliard, c. ... Events April - War between Henry II of France and Emperor Charles V. Henry invades Lorraine and captures Toul, Metz, and Verdun. ... Events March 8 - Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion (he soon rejects the idea after some initial calculations were made but on May 15 confirms the discovery). ... 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. ... Events January 6 - King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves, his fourth Queen consort. ... 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. ... Events January 6 - King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves, his fourth Queen consort. ... // 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 poem 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, "Petrarcan", canon. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an American (naturalised British) poet, dramatist and literary critic, whose works, such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, and Four Quartets, are considered defining achievements of twentieth century Modernist poetry. ...

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. ... Samuel Johnson circa 1772, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. ... Charles Churchill (February, 1731 - November 4, 1764), was an English poet and satirist. ... Thomas Gray (December 26, 1716 – July 30, 1771), 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

Here follows a list of the poems Winters recommends (in general the ones Winters considers to be the best are put first).

From the anti-Petrarcan 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 Bartholmew's Dolorous Discourses" (from Dan Bartholmew 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 Petrarcan 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). ... 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 (c. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... 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. ... Walter Raleigh, by Nicholas Hilliard, c. ... 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 "Whose list to hunt" (as the only interesting sonnet) (2).
• Sir Fulke Greville: 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: "Though beauty be the markof 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).
• Anonymus: "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 Sir Philip Sidney (November 30, 1554 – October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Ages most prominent figures. ... Astrophel and Stella The first of the famous English sonnet sequences, Astrophel and Stella was probably composed in the early 1580s. ... 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. ... Benjamin Jonson (circa June 11, 1572 – August 6, 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. ... John Donne John Donne (pronounced Dun; 1572 – March 31, 1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, the representative of the so-called metaphysical poets of the period, though the term itself came after his death. ... (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"

Samuel Johnson circa 1772, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. ... 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 (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 Johnson. 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 similarly well known authors like George Gascoigne. Harold Bloom, Literary Critic Dr. Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American professor and prominent literary and cultural critic. ... 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 Sir Philip Sidney (November 30, 1554 – October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Ages most prominent figures. ... Astrophel and Stella The first of the famous English sonnet sequences, Astrophel and Stella was probably composed in the early 1580s. ... This article is about the Elizabethan author. ... Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (c. ... Una and the Lion by Briton Rivière The Faerie Queene is an epic poem by Edmund Spenser, first published in 1590 (the first half) with the more or less complete version being published in 1596. ... Alternatively, Professor Walter Raleigh was a scholar and author circa 1900. ... An anonymous portrait, often believed to show Christopher Marlowe. ... 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. ... John Donne John Donne (pronounced Dun; 1572 – March 31, 1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, the representative of the so-called metaphysical poets of the period, though the term itself came after his death. ... There have been several people called Ben Johnson or Jonson: Ben Jonson (1572-1637; Elizabethan dramatist, poet & actor) Ben Johnson (c. ... George Gascoigne (c. ...

Some anthologies

The preface to the Blackwell anthology of Renaissance Literature from 2003acknowledges 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. ... 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. 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... // 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

Penguin Books is a British publisher founded in 1935 by Allen Lane. ...

External links

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