Areopagus (poetry)

Last updated

The Areopagus is a proposed 16th-century society or club dedicated to the reformation of English poetry. The club may have involved figures such as Edmund Spenser, Gabriel Harvey, Edward Dyer and Sir Phillip Sidney. The existence of the Areopagus as a formal society was first noted by Henry Richard Fox Bourne in 1862 in his Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney. [1] There is no direct evidence that the group was more than an idea found in the correspondence between Spenser and Harvey, and if it existed its membership is uncertain.

Contents

Background

The first documented meeting between Sir Phillip Sidney and Gabriel Harvey occurred in the summer of 1578 at Audley End. Soon afterwards, Harvey secured a place for his friend Edmund Spenser in the house of the Earl of Leicester, Sidney's uncle, facilitating an acquaintance between the young poets. During Spenser's time with Leicester he also became acquainted with Edward Dyer. Harvey was in correspondence with all three, and classical metre was a frequent topic of discussion. [2] In 1579 Spenser dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to Sidney. Both Spenser and Sidney were given to the idea of reforming English verse. [1]

In a letter dated October 1579, Spenser wrote to Harvey:

As for the twoo worthy Gentlemen, Master Sidney and Master Dyer, that haue me, I thanke them, in some use of familiarity : of whom, and to whome, what speach passeth for youre credite and estimation, I leaue your self to conceiue, hauing alwayes so well conceiued of my vnfained affection and zeale towardes you. And nowe they haue proclaimed in their [Areopagus] a generall surceasing and silence of balde Rymers, and also of the verie beste to : in steade whereof, they haue, by authoritie of their whole Senate, prescribed certaine Lawes and rules of Quantities of English sillables for English Verse : hauing had thereof already great practise, and drawen mee to their faction. [3]

Conception

Referring to Spenser's 1579 letter, H. R. Bourne was first to claim that the Areopagus was "a sort of club" of which "Sidney appears to have been president". [1] Fox also noted similarity in the style and project of alleged Areopagus members, including Spenser, Harvey and Abraham Fraunce, leading him to conclude that Sidney was attempting to establish "a new school of poetry". [4]

Legacy

By the early 20th century, scholars such as Edward Fulton and Howard Maynadier had begun to question the assumptions upon which the notion of the Areopagus as a formal club rested. Fulton asserted that Spenser's remark to Harvey was "more than probably meant to be taken as a jest". [1]

Although academic interest in the Areopagus has continued to wane, the label remains as a critical shorthand for a group of poets that included Spenser, Harvey, Dyer and Sidney. As literary critics use the term, it refers to the general project of these poets to broaden English prosody by incorporating French, Italian, Classical, and Anglo-Saxon models. [5]

See also

Wilton Circle, a similar group centered around Philip Sidney's sister, Mary Sidney

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Spenser</span> English poet (1552–1599)

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and he is considered one of the great poets in the English language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Sidney</span> English poet, courtier, and diplomat (1554-1586)

Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include a sonnet sequence, Astrophel and Stella, a treatise, The Defence of Poesy and a pastoral romance, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriel Harvey</span> English author (c. 1552/3 – 1631)

Gabriel Harvey was an English writer. Harvey was a notable scholar, whose reputation suffered from his quarrel with Thomas Nashe. Henry Morley, writing in the Fortnightly Review, has argued that Harvey's Latin works demonstrate that he was distinguished by qualities very different from the pedantry and conceit usually associated with his name.

Stephen Gosson was an English satirist.

Sir Edward Dyer was an English courtier and poet.

The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900 is an anthology of English poetry, edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch, that had a very substantial influence on popular taste and perception of poetry for at least a generation. It was published by Oxford University Press in 1900; in its india-paper form it was carried widely around the British Empire and in war as a 'knapsack book'. It sold close to 500,000 copies in its first edition. In 1939, the editor revised it, deleting several poems that he regretted including and adding instead many poems published before 1901 as well as poems published up to 1918. The second edition is now available online.

The Oxford University Press published a long series of poetry anthologies, dealing in particular with British poetry but not restricted to it, after the success of the Oxford Book of English Verse (1900). The Oxford poetry anthologies are traditionally seen as 'establishment' in attitude, and routinely therefore are subjects of discussion and contention. They have been edited both by well-known poets and by distinguished academics. In the limited perspective of canon-formation, they have mostly been retrospective and well-researched, rather than breaking fresh ground.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Sidney</span> English poet, playwright and patron (1561–1621)

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke was among the first Englishwomen to gain notice for her poetry and her literary patronage. By the age of 39, she was listed with her brother Philip Sidney and with Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare among the notable authors of the day in John Bodenham's verse miscellany Belvidere. Her play Antonius is widely seen as reviving interest in soliloquy based on classical models and as a likely source of Samuel Daniel's closet drama Cleopatra (1594) and of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1607). She was also known for translating Petrarch's "Triumph of Death", for the poetry anthology Triumphs, and above all for a lyrical, metrical translation of the Psalms.

Several anthologies of religious poetry have been published by Oxford University Press.

<i>The Shepheardes Calender</i> Work by Edmund Spenser

The Shepheardes Calender was Edmund Spenser's first major poetic work, published in 1579. In emulation of Virgil's first work, the Eclogues, Spenser wrote this series of pastorals at the commencement of his career. However, Spenser's models were rather the Renaissance eclogues of Mantuanus. The title, like the entire work, is written using deliberately archaic spellings, in order to suggest a connection to medieval literature, and to Geoffrey Chaucer in particular. Spenser dedicated the poem to Philip Sidney. The poem introduces Colin Clout, a folk character originated by John Skelton, and depicts his life as a shepherd through the twelve months of the year. The Calender encompasses considerable formal innovations, anticipating the even more virtuosic Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, the classic pastoral romance by Sir Philip Sidney, with whom Spenser was acquainted. It is also remarkable for the extensive commentary or gloss included with the work in its first publication, ascribed to an "E.K." E.K. is an intelligent, very subtle, sometimes wrong, and often deeply ironic commentator, who is sometimes assumed to be an alias of Spenser himself. The term sarcasm (Sarcasmus) is first recorded in English in Spenser's poem (October).

The Phoenix Nest was an anthology of poetry by various authors which was "set foorth" by an as-yet unidentified "R. S. of the Inner Temple Gentleman", in 1593. The title page identifies fourteen of the pieces contained therein, although there a total of seventy-nine poems, as well as three short prose pieces.

<i>An Apology for Poetry</i> Essay by Philip Sidney

An Apology for Poetry is a work of literary criticism by Elizabethan poet Philip Sidney. It was written in approximately 1580 and first published in 1595, after his death.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Thomas Drant (c.1540–1578) was an English clergyman and poet. Work of his on prosody was known to Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser. He was in the intellectual court circle known as the 'Areopagus', and including, as well as Sidney, Edward Dyer, Gabriel Harvey, and Daniel Rogers. He translated Horace into English, taking a free line in consideration of the Roman poet's secular status; but he mentioned he found Horace harder than Homer. Drant's translation was the first complete one of the Satires in English, in fourteeners, but makes some radical changes of content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilton Circle</span>

The Wilton Circle were an influential group of 16th-century English poets, led by Mary Sidney. They were based at Wilton House, Wiltshire, which was run by the half-brother of Walter Raleigh. Sidney turned Wilton into a "paradise for poets", and the circle included Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Sir John Davies, Abraham Fraunce, and Samuel Daniel.

John Mitford (1781–1859) was an English clergyman and man of letters.

Lodowick Bryskett, was a poet, translator, diplomat and Irish official. He served as Special Ambassador from England to Tuscany in 1600-01.

Complaints is a poetry collection by Edmund Spenser, published in 1591. It contains nine poems. Its publisher, William Ponsonby, added an introduction of his own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astrophel (Edmund Spenser)</span>

Astrophel: A Pastorall Elegy upon the Death of the Most Noble and Valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney is a poem by the English poet Edmund Spenser. It is Spenser's tribute to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney, who had died in 1586, and was dedicated "To the most beautiful and vertuous Ladie, the Countesse of Essex", Frances Walsingham, Sidney's widow.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Fulton, Edward (June 1916). "Spenser, Sidney, and the Areopagus". Modern Language Notes. 31 (6): 372–374. doi:10.2307/2915729. JSTOR   2915729.
  2. ↑ Maynadier, Howard (April 1909). "The Areopagus of Sidney and Spenser". The Modern Language Review. 4 (3): 289–301. doi:10.2307/3713225. JSTOR   3713225.
  3. ↑ Edmund Spenser (1815). Haslewood, Joseph (ed.). Ancient Critical Essays Upon English Poets and Poesy. Miscellanea poetica auglicana antiqua,v. 1-2 (Vol. II ed.). London: T. Bensley for Robert Triphook. p. 288. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
  4. ↑ Bourne, H.R. Fox (1862). A Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney. London: Chapman and Hall. pp. 237, 242, 417. Retrieved 5 November 2015.
  5. ↑ Palache, Lucy B. (1993). Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T.V.F. (eds.). "Areopagus". The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 98.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.