Uncovering Writing

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this collection of English Renaissance verse in my local used bookshop. While I was really only familiar with Edmund Spenser and John Milton from this period, the rest of the entries looked intriguing.

The preface was great. It explained the editor’s choices for what was included and excluded. It also delved into what had been excluded in the past when verse from this era was published (e.g. see pp. xxxi-xxxii). Excluded authors were often due to the constraints of various canons, popularity and even social mores. The editor also explains that there was an initial disdain for printed poetry by authors during this era. Newer technologies were frowned upon (a seemingly never-ending human trait!), the control of ownership was difficult as there was no formal copyright law, and the words themselves might change as manuscript versions circulated or the poetry was performed, and the creators didn’t want their words fixed.

If the preface was great, the book is worth the price of entry (both in purse and time) for the introduction. A tour de force through the period of 1509-1659. So much to unpack and enjoy. One interesting tidbit was a discussion of the rise of interpretation and translation as a source of power. People were beginning to read more of the Hebrew and Greek sources of biblical books instead of the official Vulgate (Latin) bible. The original texts showed more nuances. New translations from original sources to the vernacular were shifting power away from the priest and toward the individual (p. 11). We also see the connected trail from past to future in pastoral and rural poetry. William Browne’s “Britannia’s Pastorals” (1616) foreshadows Keats and the Romantics nearly 200 years later (p. 30).

Finally, two of the appendices are invaluable: a glossary of classical names and a short biographical entry for each author whose work appears in the volume.

Getting into the actual verse, there were many entries that stood out. I enjoyed the anonymous item “John Arm-strongs last good night” (p. 86-89). I very much liked Book 5 of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (p. 134-141), but I didn’t enjoy books 2 and 3 from the same text. Thomas Carew’s “The Spring” (p. 353-354) reminded me of Thomson’s Seasons and some of Wordsworth & Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. I enjoyed John Donne’s “To Sir Henry Wotton”, a neat versing of a letter as a poem (p. 498-500). Thomas Deloney’s “The Weavers Song” (p. 501-502) was a great story that drew on the Trojan War and characters from epic poetry. Thomas Campion’s “[Now winter nights enlarge]” (p. 510-511) was a fun romp through love and the seasons.

I’ll highlight three that I really enjoyed. Alexander Barclay’s “Certayne Egloges 5” from around 1513-1514 was wonderful (p. 381-382). I loved his description of winter arriving, how the landscape changes, how people wish for winter but then realize that it’s very cold and curse it. The flow of the poem is just wonderful:

The winter snowes, all covered is the grounde The north wind blowes sharpe and with ferefull sound, The longe ise sicles at the ewes hang, The streame is frosen, the night is cold and long, Where botes rowed nowe cartes have pasage

My prime of youth is but a froste of cares: My feaste of joy, is but a dishe of payne: My cropp of corne, is but a field of tares: And all my good is but vaine hope of gaine: The daye is gone, and yet I sawe no sonn: And nowe I live, and nowe my life is donn

But surely Adam cannot be excus’d, Her fault, though great, yet he was most too blame; What Weaknesse offerd, Strength might have refus’d, Being Lord of all, the greater was his shame: Although the Serpents craft had her abus’d, Gods holy word ought all his actions frame: For he was Lord and King of all the earth, Before poore Eve had either life or breath.