Geoffrey (then spelt Geffrey) Whitney (c. 1548 – c. 1601) was an English poet, now best known for the influence on Elizabethan writing of the Choice of Emblemes that he compiled.
Geoffrey (then spelt Geffrey) Whitney (c. 1548 – c. 1601) was an English poet, now best known for the influence on Elizabethan writing of the Choice of Emblemes that he compiled.
Geoffrey Whitney, the eldest son of a father of the same name, was born in or about 1548 at Coole Pilate, a township in the parish of Acton, four miles from Nantwich in Cheshire, where his family had been settled on a small estate since 1388. Educated at the neighbouring school of Audlem, he afterwards proceeded to Oxford University, and then for a longer period to Magdalene College, Cambridge. He seems to have left the university without a degree, going on to legal studies in London, where he was addressed in a poem by his sister dated 1573. Having entered the legal profession, he became in time under-bailiff of Great Yarmouth, a post he held from at least 1580, retaining it until 1586. In 1584 the Earl of Leicester, high steward of the borough, made an unsuccessful attempt to procure the under-stewardship for Whitney but the place was bestowed on someone else the following year. After some litigation with the corporation, by which he seems to have been badly treated, the dispute was settled by a compensatory payment.
During his residence at Yarmouth, Whitney appears to have had much contact with the Netherlands, and to have made the acquaintance of many scholars there. On the termination of his connection with the town, he followed his patron into Holland and settled in Leyden, where 'he was in great esteem among his countrymen for his ingenuity'. [1] On 1 March 1586 he became a student in the town's newly founded university and later in the year he brought out his Choice of Emblemes. This contains many commendatory poems that make much of his connection with the Earl. There is no evidence of how much longer he stayed abroad. He subsequently returned to England and rented a farm in the neighbourhood of his birthplace at Ryles (or Royals) Green, near Combermere Abbey. There he made his will on 11 September 1600, describing himself as 'sick in bodie but of sounde and perfect memorie'. The will was proved on 28 May 1601 and he seems to have died unmarried.
His sister Isabella Whitney was likewise a writer of verses. Her principal work, A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posye, contayning a Hundred and Ten Phylosophicall Flowers, appeared in 1573.
Whitney's reputation depends upon his celebrated emblem book, the full title of which was A Choice of Emblemes and other Devises, for the moste parte gathered out of sundrie writers, Englished and moralised, and divers newly devised, by Geffrey Whitney. A worke adorned with varietie of matter, both pleasant and profitable: wherein those that please maye finde to fit their fancies: Because herein, by the office of the eie and the eare, the minde maye reape dooble-delighte throughe holsome preceptes, shadowed with pleasant devises: both fit for the vertuous, to their incoraging; and for the wicked, for their admonishing and amendment. [2] It was published in a two-part quarto edition from the Plantin Press in Leyden and dedicated to the Earl of Leicester from London, 28 November 1585, with an epistle to the reader dated Leyden, 4 May 1586.
The work was the first of its kind to give to Englishmen an adequate example of the emblem books from the great continental presses. It was mainly from this book, representing the greater part of emblem literature preceding it, that Shakespeare gained knowledge of the great foreign emblematists of the 16th century. There are 248 emblems, each accompanied by a woodcut with a motto and a poem in English. 202 of the illustrations were chosen from the stock held at the Plantin Press and are the work of Andrea Alciato, Claude Paradin, Johannes Sambucus, Hadrianus Junius, and the illustrator of Gabriele Faerno's Centum Fabulae. Twenty-three more are suggested by the work of others and a further 23 are original.
The poems are for the most part in six-line stanzas; a few are in quatrains or are even two-line epigrams. They are addressed to Whitney's kinsmen or friends, or to a notable contemporary, and give information of persons, places, and things rarely to be found elsewhere. The verses are often of great merit and always show extensive learning. Some are translations or adaptations of Classical authors such as Horace (p. 59), Ovid (p. 121) and Anacreon (p. 182). It is noteworthy that there are a higher proportion of fables in the collection than are usual in other emblem books. While most are the fables of Aesop to be found in Faerno's Centum Fabulae, which had been issued from the Plantin Press in 1567, there are rarer items like The Dog in the Manger and Washing the Ethiopian white.
Anthony Wood's Athenae Oxonienses credits Whitney with another collection of Fables or Epigrams 'printed much about the same time', but no evidence of it has been found. The title sounds more like a description of the contents of Choice of Emblemes. Two other poems were printed in his friend Jan Dousa's Odae Brittanicae, also printed by the Plantin Press in 1586. One is a translation of complimentary verses addressed to the Earl of Leicester; the other is a 90-line commendation of the book of odes, very much in the style of his own emblem book:
More recently it has been argued that the two commendatory sonnets that preface Edmund Spenser's Amoretti (1595) were written by Whitney and his father. [3]
George Gascoigne was an English poet, soldier and unsuccessful courtier. He is considered the most important poet of the early Elizabethan era, following Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and leading to the emergence of Philip Sidney. He was the first poet to deify Queen Elizabeth I, in effect establishing her cult as a virgin goddess married to her kingdom and subjects. His most noted works include A Discourse of the Adventures of Master FJ (1573), an account of courtly intrigue and one of the earliest English prose fictions; The Supposes,, an early translation of Ariosto and the first comedy written in English prose, which was used by Shakespeare as a source for The Taming of the Shrew; the frequently anthologised short poem "Gascoignes wodmanship" (1573) and "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English" (1575), the first essay on English versification.
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Miser and his Gold is one of Aesop's Fables that deals directly with human weaknesses, in this case the wrong use of possessions. Since this is a story dealing only with humans, it allows the point to be made directly through the medium of speech rather than be surmised from the situation. It is numbered 225 in the Perry Index.
The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, which exist in several different versions. Other fables exist in the East that feature division of prey in such a way that the divider gains the greater part - or even the whole. In English the phrase used in the sense of nearly all only appeared at the end of the 18th century; the French equivalent, le partage du lion, is recorded from the start of that century, following La Fontaine's version of the fable.
The Monkey and the Cat is best known as a fable adapted by Jean de La Fontaine under the title Le Singe et le Chat that appeared in the second collection of his Fables in 1679 (IX.17). It is the source of popular idioms in both English and French, with the general meaning of being the dupe of another.
The Dog and Its Reflection is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 133 in the Perry Index. The Greek language original was retold in Latin and in this way was spread across Europe, teaching the lesson to be contented with what one has and not to relinquish substance for shadow. There also exist Indian variants of the story. The morals at the end of the fable have provided both English and French with proverbs and the story has been applied to a variety of social situations.
The Oak and the Reed is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 70 in the Perry Index. It appears in many versions: in some it is with many reeds that the oak converses and in a late rewritten version it disputes with a willow.
The drowned woman and her husband is a story found in Mediaeval jest-books that entered the fable tradition in the 16th century. It was occasionally included in collections of Aesop's Fables but never became established as such and has no number in the Perry Index. Folk variants in which a contrary wife is sought upstream by her husband after she drowns are catalogued under the Aarne-Thompson classification system as type 1365A.
The Fox and the Lion is one of Aesop's Fables and represents a comedy of manners. It is number 10 in the Perry Index.
The Gourd and the Palm-tree is a rare fable of West Asian origin that was first recorded in Europe in the Middle Ages. In the Renaissance a variant appeared in which a pine took the palm-tree's place and the story was occasionally counted as one of Aesop's Fables.
The Satyr and the Traveller is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 35 in the Perry Index. The popular idiom 'to blow hot and cold' is associated with it and the fable is read as a warning against duplicity.
"The Astrologer who Fell into a Well" is a fable based on a Greek anecdote concerning the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales of Miletus. It was one of several ancient jokes that were absorbed into Aesop's Fables and is now numbered 40 in the Perry Index. During the scientific attack on astrology in the 16th–17th centuries, the story again became very popular.
The cautionary tale of The Mouse and the Oyster is rarely mentioned in Classical literature but is counted as one of Aesop's Fables and numbered 454 in the Perry Index. It has been variously interpreted, either as a warning against gluttony or as a caution against unwary behaviour.
Developed by authors during Renaissance times, the story of an ass eating thistles was a late addition to collections of Aesop's Fables. Beginning as a condemnation of miserly behaviour, it eventually was taken to demonstrate how preferences differ.
The Fowler and the Snake is a story of Greek origin that demonstrates the fate of predators. It was counted as one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 115 in the Perry Index.
The Ass Carrying an Image is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 182 in the Perry Index. It is directed against human conceit but at one period was also used to illustrate the argument in Canon Law that the sacramental act is not diminished by the priest's unworthiness.
Hercules and the Wagoner or Hercules and the Carter is a fable credited to Aesop. It is associated with the proverb "God helps those who help themselves", variations on which are found in other ancient Greek authors.
The Oxburgh Hangings are needlework bed hangings that are held in Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, England, made by Mary, Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick, during the period of Mary's captivity in England.
The stagand the vine is a formerly popular and widely translated fable by Aesop. It is numbered 77 in the Perry Index.
The Apeand the Dolphin is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 73 in the Perry Index. Due to its appearance among La Fontaine's Fables, it has always been popular in France, but in Britain treatment of the story was rarer until the 19th century.
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