Renaissance Literature: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose

Responding to the broadening of the canon in recent years, this accessible anthology makes available the most important poetry and prose from the period between the accession of Henry VIII in 1509 and the English Revolution of 1640. Arranged chronologically, generous selections from familiar Renaissance figures, such as More, Wyatt, Tyndale, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Bacon, and Donne, are complemented by a strong emphasis on women writers, including Queen Elizabeth, Aemilia Lanyer, Rachel Speght, Martha Moulsworth, Lady Mary Wroth, and Elizabeth Cary. A range of prose works, including biblical translations, illustrates the development of English prose over the period. The volume also offers a selection of carols, ballads, songs, and hymns.

Now available in a fully revised new edition, this anthology has been extensively corrected and expanded to increase the level of annotation, and to make the volume more user–friendly. This edition features a brand new introduction and timeline enabling students to consider entries more easily in the social, cultural and historical context of the period.

List of Illustrations Alphabetical List of Authors Preface: Representing the Renaissance in the Twenty–First Century Acknowledgments Timeline: The Tudor and Stuart Monarchs, 1509 1642 Introduction: Renaissance English History and Literature John Skelton (1460? 1529)    Philip Sparrow [Part I] Sir Thomas More (1477/8 1535)     [From] The History of King Richard the Third (ca. 1513 18)     [From] A Dialogue Concerning Heresies (1529)     Letter from Margaret Roper to Alice Alington, August 1534 Sir Thomas Elyot (ca. 1490 1546)   [From] The Book Named the Governor   [From] The First Book of The Castell of Health William Tyndale (1494 1536)   [From] The Obedience of a Christian Man (1528)   [From] Tyndale s Translation of the Pentateuch (1530)   [From] Tyndale s Translation of the New Testament (1534)     Mark 4:1 34 [the Parable of the Sower and the Seed]     The Gospel of Saint John, Chapter 1   [Tyndale s Translation of Luther s] A Prologue to the Epistle of Paul to the Romans Sir Thomas Wyatt (ca. 1503 1542)   [From] Certain Psalms (published 1549)     [Prologue]     Psalm 51. Miserere mei domine   Poems Attributed to Wyatt in the Egerton Manuscript and in Tottel s Miscellany     [The Long Love]     [Whoso List to Hunt]     [The Pillar Perished]     [Farewell, Love]     [Sometime I Fled the Fire]     [Tagus, Farewell]     [Sighs Are My Food]     [Lucks, My Fair Falcon]     [In Court to Serve]     [They Flee from Me]     [Madam, Withouten Many Words]     [And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?]     [My Lute, Awake!]     [Mine Own John Poyntz] Broadside Ballads (ca. 1535 onwards)     A Ballad of Luther, the Pope, a Cardinal, and a Husbandman (ca. 1535)     London s Lottery (1612)     The Silver Age; or, the World Turn d Backward (1621) Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 1547) (os)   [Translations from the Aeneid ]     [From] Book II [The Death of Creusa]     [From] Book IV [The Suicide of Dido]   Psalm 55   [When Ragyng Love]   [The Soote Season]   [Set Me Wheras the Sonne]   [Love That Doth Raine]   [The Sonne Hath Twyse Brought Forthe]   [London, Hast Thow Accused Me]   [W. Resteth Here] John Foxe (1517 1587)   [From] Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days     Story and Martyrdom of Anne Askew Richard Mulcaster (1530? 1611)   [From] Positions (1581)   [From] The First Part of the Elementarie (1582) Queen Elizabeth I (1533 1603)   [Written on a Window Frame at Woodstock]   [ Twas Christ the Word]   [The Doubt of Future Foes]   On Monsieur s Departure   [When I Was Fair and Young]   Verse Exchange Between Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh     [Raleigh to Elizabeth]     [Elizabeth to Raleigh]   [Song on the Armada Victory, December 1588]   Letter from Princess Elizabeth to Queen Mary, August 2, 1556   Queen Elizabeth s Speech at the Closing of Parliament, March 29, 1585 George Gascoigne (ca. 1534 1577)   [From] A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1573)     Gascoigne s Woodmanship     Gascoigne s Goodnight Certain Sermons or Homilies (1547, 1563)   A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture (1547)   An Homily of the Misery of All Mankind, and of His Condemnation to Death Everlasting, by His Own Sin (1547)   An Homily of the State of Matrimony (1563) The Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552, and 1559) (os)   The Preface (1559)   Of Ceremonies, Why Some be Abolished, and Some retayned (1559)   [From] The Litany (1552)   [From] The order of the ministracion of the lordes supper or holy Communion (1552) Edmund Spenser (1552 1599) (os)   [From] The Shepheardes Calender     Aprill  [From]  Amoretti    Epithalamion   [From] The Faerie Queene     A Letter of the Authors expounding his whole intention to Raleigh     Book II, cantos 1, 7, 9 10, 12     Two Cantos of Mutabilitie   [From] A View of the State of Ireland Anonymous Carols   [Sing We With Mirth]   [By Reason of Two]   [Of All Creatures Women Be Best] Richard Hakluyt (ca. 1552 1616) (os)   [From] The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation     The third troublesome voyage made by M. John Hawkins     [From] A true discourse of the three Voyages of discoverie     The woorthy enterprise of John Foxe     The answere of her Maiestie to the aforesaid Letters of the Great Turke John Lyly (ca. 1553 1606)   [From] Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit John Florio (1553? 1625)   [From] The Essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne     To the courteous Reader     Of the Cannibals Sir Walter Raleigh (ca. 1553 1618)   Like to a Hermit Poor    The Nymph s Reply to the Shepherd   The Lie   A Farewell to False Love    [Even Such is Time]   The 21st (and last) Book of the Ocean to Cynthia Sir Philip Sidney (1554 1586)    The Defense of Poesy   [From] Astrophil and Stella   Miscellaneous Poetry     Poems from The Countess of Pembroke s Arcadia       [As I my little flock on Ister bank]       [Ye goat–herd gods]      Sonnets       [Thou blind man s mark]       [Leave me, O love]   [From] The Psalms of David     Psalm 22     Psalm 23     Psalm 30 Thomas Hariot (1560 1621) and John White (1540? 1590)   [From] A briefe and true report of the new found Land of Virginia of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the natural inhabitants (1590)       To the Adventurers, Favourers, and Well–Willers of the Enterprise for the Inhabiting and Planting in Virginia       The third and last part with a description of the nature and manners of the people of the country Sir Francis Bacon (1561 1626)   [From] The Advancement of Learning (1605)   [From] Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral (1625)     Of Truth     Of Simulation and Dissimulation     Of Innovations     Of Plantations     Of Nature in Men     Of Studies     Of Vicissitude of Things    New Atlantis (published 1627) Robert Southwell (1561 1595)   The Burning Babe   Decease Release   Man s Civil War   Look Home Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561 1621) (os)   To the Angell Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney   [From] The Psalms of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke     Psalm 44 Deus , auribus     Psalm 59 Eripe me de inimicis     Psalm 138 Confitebor tibi     Psalm 139 Domine, probasti A Mirror for Magistrates (1563, 1587 editions) (os)   [From] A Mirror for Magistrates     The Induction     Cardinal Wolsey Christopher Marlowe (1564 1593) (os)    Hero and Leander                  [From] All Ovid s Elegies     Book One, Elegia 1     Book One, Elegia 5     Book Three, Elegia 7     Book Three, Elegia 11   The Passionate Shepherd to his Love William Shakespeare (1564 1616)    The Rape of Lucrece   [From]  Sonnets Thomas Campion (1567 1620) (os)   [From] A Booke of Ayres (1601)     To the Reader     I II     VI     X     XII     XV     XXI     [Female Persona Lyrics]       2: IX       2: XV       4: XVIII Thomas Nashe (1567 1601)   The Choice of Valentines   [From] Pierce Penniless His Supplication to the Devil (1592) Æmilia Lanyer (1569 1645) (os)    Salve Deus Rex Judæorum Ben Jonson (1572 1637)   [From] Epigrams (1616)     xi. On Something that Walks Somewhere     xiv. To William Camden     xxii. On My First Daughter     xxiii. To John Donne     xlv. On My First Son     lii. To Censorious Courtling     lxii. To Fine Lady Would–Be     lxxvi. On Lucy, Countess of Bedford     lxxxiii. To a Friend     lxxxix. To Edward Alleyn     ci. Inviting a Friend to Supper     cii. To William, Earl of Pembroke     cv. To Mary, Lady Wroth     cx. To Clement Edmonds, On His Caesar s Commentaries Observed and Translated     cxviii. On Gut     cxxxiv. On the Famous Voyage   [From] The Forest (1616)     i. Why I Write Not of Love     ii. To Penshurst     v. Song: To Celia     ix. Song: To Celia     xv. To Heaven   [From] Underwoods (1640)     2. A Celebration of Charis in Ten Lyric Pieces       His Excuse for loving       Her Triumph       His discourse with Cupid     9. My Picture Left in Scotland     23. An Ode. To Himself     29. A Fit of Rhyme Against Rhyme     47. An Epistle Answering to One that Asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben     70. To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair,            Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison   Miscellaneous Poems     To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr. William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us John Donne (1572 1631)   [From] Songs and Sonnets     The Anniversary     The Apparition     The Bait     The Canonization     The Ecstasy     A Fever     The Flea     The Funeral     The Indifferent     A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy s Day, Being the Shortest Day     The Relic     Song     The Sun Rising     A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning   Elegies     Elegy 8. To His Mistress Going to Bed     Elegy 9. Change   The First Anniversary: An Anatomy of the World   Religious Poems     Holy Sonnets : 6 7, 10     Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward   [From] Paradoxes, Problems, Essays, Characters (published 1652)       A Defence of Women s Inconstancy      That Nature is our Worst Guide       Why Puritans make long Sermons?   [From] Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)     XVII. Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris John Marston (1576 1634)   [From] Metamorphosis of Pygmalion s Image, and Certaine Satyres (1598)     Satire II Martha Moulsworth (1577 ?) (os)   November the 10 th 1632, The Memorandum of Martha Moulsworth Widdowe Elizabeth (Tanfield) Cary, Lady Falkland (1585 1639)   [From] The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry     The Argument     Actus Primus. Scena Prima Myles Smith (d. 1624)   The Translators to the Reader the Preface to the Authorized Version (King James Bible) (1611) Lady Mary (Sidney) Wroth (1586? 1651?)   [From] Pamphilia to Amphilanthus   [From] The Countess of Montgomery s Urania George Wither (1588 1667)   [From] A Collection of Emblemes Ancient and Moderne George Herbert (1593 1633)   [From] The Temple     The Altar     The Agonie     Sepulchre     Easter     Easter Wings     Sinne     Prayer (I)     Love I     Jordan (I)     Employment (I)     The H. Scriptures I     Church Monuments     The Windows     The Quiddity     Denial     Vertue     The Pearl. Matth . 13. 45     Life     Jordan (II)     The British Church     The Quip     Paradise     The Collar     The Pulley     The Sonne     Discipline     Death Rachel Speght (1597 ?) (os)    A Mouzell for Melastomus Gazetteer of Classical and Early Modern Names and Places Bibliography Index of Titles Introductions, and Notes

John Hunter is Associate Professor of Comparative Humanities at Bucknell University. His previous publications include essays on Francis Bacon and on early modern drama.

"Arranged chronologically, these selections of prose pieces, carols, ballads, songs, and hymns contain introductory notes, suggested readings, and footnotes. Also included are bibliographical references, indexes, and cross references to the Internet resources. Strongly recommended for all libraries." ( Library Journal (of the previous edition))