The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse: 1509–1659

by David Norbrook (Selection), Henry R. Woudhuysen (Editor)

The era between the accession of Henry VIII and the crisis of the English republic in 1659 formed one of the most fertile epochs in world literature. This anthology offers a broad selection of its poetry, and includes a wide range of works by the great poets of the age - notably Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Sepnser, John Donne, William Shakespeare and John Milton. Poems by less well-known writers also feature prominently - among them significant female poets such as Lady Mary Wroth and Katherine Philips. Compelling and exhilarating, this landmark collection illuminates a time of astonishing innovation, imagination and diversity.

Selected and with an introduction by David Norbrook, and edited by H.R. Woudhuysen.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Renaissance, Anthologies, 17th Century, Fiction, 16th Century

920 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 1992

About the author

David Norbrook is Emeritus Merton Professor of English Literature in the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford.

Norbrook was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, the University of Aberdeen and Balliol College, Oxford. He became fellow and tutor in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1978, and offered some support to the radical pressure group Oxford English Limited in the late 1980s. He is the author of Poetry and Politics in the English Renaissance, Writing the English Republic: Poetry, Rhetoric and Politics, 1627-1660, and The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse.

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

The second entry I loved is Chidiock Tichborne’s elegy. He wrote this on the eve of his execution (19 September 1586) after being condemned for treason for trying to kill Elizabeth I and replace her with a Catholic monarch:

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

My final entry to highlight is probably the best. It is Æmilia Lanyer’s “Salve Deus Rex Judæorum (p. 556-558). This reminds me of Milton’s Paradise Lost. She chastises Eve but calls out Adam for the greater failure (sin) he was king of all things and was alive before Eve. She notes that Man always honors and loves knowledge, but never mentions that it was Eve who gave him the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that opened his eyes. In my reading notes, I wrote “Damn!” This is definitely a proto-feminist piece written by the first professional English woman poet. This was written in 1611 … double damn!

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.

My only feedback for a new edition of this work would be to include the date of each entry along with the title. I frequently had to flip to the back to read the author bios to find out when a selected entry was written.

[Miss Jools · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading and re-reading Renaissance poetry for years, and this is a really excellent collection, with a great introduction.

I love how this is set out in themed sections rather than by author or date:
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

While it covers a lot of favourites and familiar names that I own in editions of their own (Spenser, Donne, Marvell, Milton, Herrick, Carew, Jonson, etc.), there was still a lot new to me.

The extensive notes, appendices and handy index are also useful -and make this a great collection for anyone new to this period of literature.

A real pleasure.

[Jennifer Irving · Rating 4 out of 5]

i am not ready for uni

[Andrea Zuvich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good collection of some of the best verse the Renaissance created for us. I recommend it heartily for those who want some beauty in their day, who also appreciate and enjoy reading works from this time period.

[Peter Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a massive piece of work, just short of a thousand pages, comprising 374 poems each with textual notes and short biographies of each of the poets. I find that continuous reading of this type of book arduous so decided to read a poem a day which could take anything from a few minutes to an hour as many poems stretch of multiple pages. Two benefits were finding new voices, for me John Skelton and Walter Ralegh in particular, and looking again at familiar names, particularly John Milton and Edmund Spenser where a whole book of his being for none but the brave.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long haul of a book but a good overview of British Renaissance verse from the early Tudor period through just before the Restoration. I would have like better notation (there were a lot of analogies or references not explained) but I do appreciate that the editors didn’t modernize the spelling. It was harder to read in places but very interesting to see how spelling began to standardize over these 150 years of verse.

[Violet-May Davey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the topics that were the subjects chosen from the different poets, I also liked the mixture of Latin embedded into Shakespearan. Did take a while to get into, but once I did, I really enjoyed what that period of literature looked like. I also liked the structure and how the layout was different.

[Doris Raines · Rating 3 out of 5]

NICE BOOK.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading & re-reading. A book of wonders. I first found Sir Walter Ralegh's 21th and Last Book of the Ocean to Cynthia here, and that alone is well worth the price, and more. I love this book.

updated feb 2011: no change. This is one of the best "period" anthologies I have ever encountered.

[Ian Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading for the introduction which provides some much-needed context for so-o-o-o-o many of these poems.