The Portable Elizabethan reader / edited & with an introduction by Hiram Haydn (Viking Portable Library)

by Hiram (editor) Hayden

Samples of the era in a same handy volume.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

Reviews

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an anthology of the poetry, songs, history, drama, essays, personal memoirs, religious and scientific writings of the Elizabethan era. Authors include Sir Walter Raleigh, John Donne, William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, John Foxe, Edmund Spenser, and Ben Johnson to name the better known Elizabethan authors plus many lessor known writers.

I personally found the poetry to be especially enjoyable. Centered largely around mystical love and the perfect woman in language that is quite obsolete but nevertheless lovely, I enjoyed the various rhymes and rhythm and there is quite a variety of them.

It includes an excerpt of George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad and Sir Thomas North's of Antony's flight and Cleopatra's Death.

If you enjoy the literature of that time period, not the least of which is the beautiful and tragically now antiquated language of the 17th century you will enjoy this book.

It is old and out of print, but I'm sure someone somewhere is selling a copy on eBay or Amazon.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book but you've got to like the topic and be interested in it to keep your focus.