The Courtier Poets

1
The Courtier Poets

• 16th and early 17th century

2
Biographical Sketches

• HENRY VIII
• Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542 nat. death)
• Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547 exec.)
• ELIZABETH I
• Sir Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599 nat. death)
• Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586 d. of battle wound)
• ELIZABETH I and JAMES VI I
• Sir Walter Ralegh (1552-1618 exec.)
• Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628 murd.)
• non-courtiers Marlowe 1564-1593 Shakespeare
  1564-1616

3
Literary/Cultural Traditions Courtier Poetry

• Italian literature
• e.g., Petrarchs sonnet sequence to Laura
  (14th-c.)
• literature on courtly life and behavior
  (15th-16th c.)
• fin amour tradition
• Chaucer as national poetic model
• classical literature
• epic pastoral
• Christianity Bible

4
Poetic Forms

• See Handout on Rhythm Rhyme
• Feet
• definition
• types
• foot-type line-length meter of line
• Stanzas
• lengths
• types
• Poetic forms defined by meter of lines and rhyme
  scheme (number of lines implied)

5
Sonnets and Sonnet Sequences

• Wyatt and Surrey
• Sidney, Astrophil and Stella
• Spenser, Amoretti

6
Specific Concepts Poems

• Petrarchan conceit (definitions)
• pastoral (definition)