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Shakspere and His Forerunners: Studies in Elizabethan Poetry and Its Development from Early English
Shakspere and His Forerunners Studies in Elizabethan Poetry and Its Development from Early English Author:Sidney Lanier, Henry Wysham Lanier General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1908 Original Publisher: Doubleday, Page Subjects: English poetry Women in literature Sonnets, English Drama / Shakespeare Literary Criticism / Poetry Literary Criticism / Shakespeare Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR... more » reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER I THE ELIZABETHAN WRITERS -- THE FORMAL SIDE OF POETRY AM not unmindful of Sydney Smith's irreverent individual who would even speak disrespectfully of the Equator: but I earnestly think sometimes that we need a reminder against the over- tyrannic radiance of the sun. It cannot be quite well that the multitudes of other stars which beam down through the daylight should be utterly blotted out from our senses and our thoughts. Somehow the starlight has never mixed in trade; it has never become so commonplace as the sunlight. At any rate, it is mathematically certain that he who forgets the stars that shine at noonday loses half the universe. Now in proposing to examine with some detail that brilliant Elizabethan period which may well be called the high noon of English letters, I invite you first to study with me a number of poets who have been for the majority of people as utterly drowned out of sight in the overpowering fame of Shakspere as are the stars in yonder sky at this moment. I think, as I call over some names, how remote they are from the daily life of our time: think of Henry Howard, of Wyatt, of the two Vauxs, of that delicious Henry Constable, of Bartholomew Griffin, of Nicholas Breton, of Lyly, of Giles and Phineas Fletcher, of Peele, Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, Edwards, Nicholson, Sack- ville, Gascoigne, Barnfield, Daniel, Raleigh, Sidney, Lady Mary Wroth...« less