William Webbe, 'a Discourse of English Poetry' (1586)


Book Description

William Webbe's A Discourse of English Poetry (1586) is the first printed treatise exclusively dedicated to devising a canon for the definition of poetry in England. Traditionally eclipsed by the academic centrality of Philip Sidney's The Defence of Poesy (c. 1580; published 1595) and George Puttenham's The Art of English Poesy (1588), it was last prepared in a scholarly edition by Gregory Smith in 1904. This volume presents a modern-spelling text and a critical apparatus derived from the collation of the first printed document with subsequent editions. The explanatory notes incorporate recent research on Elizabethan literary theory and aim at substantiating Webbe's contribution within the academic and literary spheres of sixteenth-century England. A Discourse offers an enlightening testimony of the main concerns of Tudor humanism, and it also sheds light on the ideological foundations of the acclaimed quantitative reformation of metre launched by Sidney, Harvey, Spenser and other contemporary scholars.













William Webbe


Book Description




A Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586 (Classic Reprint)


Book Description

Excerpt from A Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586Although Poetry is the moft ethereal part of Thought and Expreflion; though Poets mufl be born and cannot be made: yet is there an art of Poefy; fet forth long ago by Home but varying with differ ing languages and countries, and even with different ages in the life Of the fame country. In our tongue Milton only excepted - there is nothing approaching, either in the average merit of the Journeymen or the fuperlative excellence of the few mafler-crafifmen, the Poefy of the Elizabethan age. Hence the value of thefe early Poetical Criticifms. Their difcuffion of principles as mofl helpful to all readers tn the difcern ment of the fubtlc beauties Of the numberlefs poems Of that era: while for thol'e who can, and who will they will be found fingularly fuggefiive in the training of their own Power of Song, for the inflruetion and delight of this and future generations.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.




Poetry as Discourse


Book Description

First published in 2002. It is easy to see that we are living in a time of rapid and radical social change. New Accents is intended as a positive response to the initiative offered by such a situation. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change, to stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study. This study presents insights into poetry as discourse ooking at language, conventual literary theory, and then a detailed look at the iambic pentameter, ballads in English Poetry, looking at Shakespeare's Sonnet 73. Also included is commentary on transparency looking at Pope's The Rape of the Lock, and Romanticism in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads and Wordworth's Tintern Abbey. Before ending on the future of poetry there is also a section on the Modernism of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.




A Discourse of English Poetrie - 1586


Book Description

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.