This book surveys English love poetry, primarily, though not exclusively, sonnets and sonnet sequences that show the influence of Petrarch, from the early sixteenth century to the publication of Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus in 1621. It incorporates a range of new scholarship and thinking into narrative history, with a focus on particular poets including Thomas Wyatt, George Gascoigne, Philip Sidney, Fulke Greville, Samuel Daniel, Wroth, Walter Ralegh, and Shakespeare, as well as particularly notable poems such as "They flee from me", "Gascoigne's Woodmanship", and "The Ocean's Love to Cynthia". The self-absorption of Petrarchan lyricism is brought into a more populous environment and is linked to the ambitious and intense world of the English court, within which many of these poets lived and worked. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Petrarchan theme of love for a powerful but distant woman was literalized in the politics of the realm, in ways that the queen herself recognized and exploited. A final chapter offers a new model for the implied narrative of Shakespeare's sonnets.

About the Author
Gordon Braden is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Virginia where he began teaching in 1975. He was chair of the Department 1997-2000 and 2003-06, and retired in 2014 as Linden Kent Memorial Professor of English.

Reviews
There is much to admire in this book, and much to be grateful for; future studies of English Petrarchism can only gain from this milestone. * Alessandra Petrina, Translation and Literature *



Book Information
ISBN 9780192858368
Author Gordon Braden
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 636g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 162mm * 22mm