Idea: Elizabethan Sonnet Cycle

by Michael Drayton, Mark Tuley (Editor)

MICHAEL ELIZABETHAN SONNET CYCLE Michael Drayton’s ‘Idea’ is one of the major Elizabethan sonnet sequences, reprinted here in an attractive new edition. ‘Idea’ is a sonnet cycle of love poetry, and some of the finest verse in the English language. The book includes a note on Michael Drayton, illustrations, and suggestions for further reading. Each poem has a page to itself. It's a useful edition for students. Michael Drayton was born in 1563 in Warwickshire. He worked as a page (for Sir Henry Goodyere, an early patron, and later for Lucy, Countess of Bedford), and esquire (for Sir Walter Aston). As well as poems he wrote plays (1597-1602). He died in 1631 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. Michael Drayton’s ‘Idea In Sixtie Three Sonnets’ was revised a number of times by the author. It was published first in 1594, and was republished in 1599, 1600, 1602, 1605 and 1619. Anne Goodyere (the daughter of Sir Philip Sidney’s friend Sir Henry Goodyere), is assumed to be the object of affection in the sonnet sequence (though it’s not certain if they were romantically involved; Drayton remained a passionate admirer for most of his life, and hers. She was married to Sir Henry Rainsford from 1595 until Rainsford’s death in 1622, after which Drayton continued as Anne’s devotee). The name Idea also has Platonic associations. MICHAEL DRAYTON, SONNET 4, FROM 'IDEA': BRIGHT STAR of beauty, on whose eyelids sit | A thousand nymph-like and enamoured graces, | The goddesses of memory and wit, | Which there in order take their several places; | In whose dear bosom, sweet delicious love | Lays down his quiver which he once did bear, | Since he that blessed paradise did prove, | And leaves his mother's lap to sport him there | Let others strive to entertain with words | My soul is of a braver mettle made; | I hold that vile which vulgar wit affords; | In me's that faith which time cannot invade. | Let what I praise be still made good by you; | Be you most worthy whilst I am most true! Illustrated. Bibliography and note. ISBN 9781861711137. 92 pages. www.crmoon.com

Genres: Poetry

79 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1592

Reviews

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read these three books [Idea's Mirror, Idea and Nymphidia: The Court of Fairy] completely by accident; I read some excerpts in an anthology of seventeenth century verse I am reading (the oldest poet included), went online to find more information about him, and started reading them on my computer and kept going so that in about two or two-and-a-half hours I had read all three. Drayton is a bit earlier than my current reading project (which was at first intended to start with Blake, then with Dryden, then with Butler and I keep going farther and farther back rather than forward.) After reading them I went out to my garage/library to put away some newly acquired books and again purely by accident I stumbled on a short biography of Drayton, which I will probably read next week, since I doubt whether I will ever come back to Drayton in the future.

Born the year before Shakespeare, but living fifteen years longer, Drayton bridges the period between the Elizabethan era and the early seventeenth century. While somewhat of a minor figure, he is interesting. Idea's Mirror (1594) is a collection of about fifty sonnets supposedly written by a shepherd named Gorbo to his love, Idea. Idea (1619) is a revised version of the same work, although many of the earlier poems have dropped out and more have been added (the collection contains seventy-three poems); of the sonnets contained in both versions, most seemed to have been revised quite a bit. Although Drayton is considered a literary "conservative" continuing Elizabethan traditions into the new century, the differences do show a certain receptivity to seventeenth-century style.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stay, speedy time! Behold, before thou pass
From age to age, what thou hast sought to see,
One in whom all the excellencies be,
In whom heaven looks itself as in a glass.
Time, look thou too in this translucent glass,
And thy youth past in this pure mirror see!
As the world’s beauty in his infancy,
What it was then, and thou before it was.
Pass on and to posterity tell this—
Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been.
Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
In perfect human shape all heavenly bliss;
And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
That she is gone, her like again to see.

[Elizabeth Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

How did I get here? Via Georgette Heyer, who quotes a line in Venetia, and the Poems on the Underground initiative in London some time in the 1990s. Up until then I hadn't realized love poems could be conceited, witty, funny, and gently pulling the legs of lyrical I and you...