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Fulke Greville (1554–1628)

Autor(a) de Five Courtier Poets of the English Renaissance

14+ Works 99 Membros 3 Críticas

About the Author

Disambiguation Notice:

(eng) Do not confuse him with others with similar names, such as Fulke Greville (1717–1806), author of Maxims Characters and Reflections, or the Hon. Robert Fulke Greville (1751-1824), equerry to King George III.

Image credit: Portrait by Edmund Lodge.

Obras por Fulke Greville

Associated Works

The Oxford Book of English Verse (1999) — Contribuidor — 471 exemplares
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contribuidor — 448 exemplares
The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse: 1509-1659 (1992) — Contribuidor — 285 exemplares
The Renaissance in England (1966) — Contribuidor — 16 exemplares
The Elizabethan courtier poets : the poems and their contexts (1991) — Contribuidor — 11 exemplares

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome legal
Greville, Fulke, 1st Baron Brooke
Outros nomes
Lord Brooke
1st Baron Brooke
Data de nascimento
1554-10-03
Data de falecimento
1628-09-30
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
England
País (no mapa)
UK
Local de nascimento
Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire, England
Local de falecimento
Warwick, Warwickshire, England
Locais de residência
Warwick Castle, Warwick, England
Educação
University of Cambridge
Ocupações
poet
biographer
politician
playwright
Chancellor of the Exchequer (1614-21)
Relações
Sidney, Sir Philip (friend)

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Sir Fulke Greville served in various positions in English government, including Chancellor of the Exchequer, for which he was named 1st Baron Brooke in 1621 and given Warwick Castle. He is best known as the biographer of his lifelong friend Sir Philip Sidney.
Nota de desambiguação
Do not confuse him with others with similar names, such as Fulke Greville (1717–1806), author of Maxims Characters and Reflections, or the Hon. Robert Fulke Greville (1751-1824), equerry to King George III.

Membros

Críticas

[Caelica] - Fulke Greville
Caelica is a collection of 110 poems written by Fulke Greville probably between 1580 and his death in 1628. They were never published during his lifetime. They existed in manuscript form until they were printed in 1633. They have been labelled a sonnet collection although in effect only 41 of the 110 poems keep to the 14 line rhyming sequence that we associate with sonnets. It is conjectured that many of the early poems in the collection (perhaps 1-40) were written in conjunction with Sir Philip Sydney as the two men were firm friends both serving at the court of Queen Elizabeth. Perhaps Greville is best known for the biography of Sir Philip Sydney written between 1610-12 and published in 1652.

Loaded with this information I approached the sonnet sequence with some trepidation, having recently trudged my way through sonnet sequences by Giles Fletcher, Barnabe Barnes, Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel; all collections named after a woman with whom the poet had supposedly fallen in love. Elizabethan love sonnet collections can be dreary things indeed, as by the 1590's they had quickly fallen into a pattern that owed far more to a style of writing than to any emotional content. They were seemingly based on ideas of courtly love, wedded to the example and template set down by the Italian poet Petrarch. They usually take the form of poems addressed to the named woman who is the love of the poets life; usually an unrequited love, hence the standard phrases and images of the love lorn speaker pleading his case to be accepted as a lover. A quick glance at the Caelica collection seemed to point to the same sort of thing. I thought I might be spending a couple of evenings with them, but ended up by reading them for over a week. It is true that in many respects they do follow the well trodden path of other sonnet collections, even more so in Greville's case because we never get any idea of Caelica as a living breathing woman, but there is something different at work here. In all such collections that I have read there are the occasional poems that stand out, or an arresting stanza, or a few lines that sing that can make the reading experience worthwhile. In the case of Greville this seemed to happen more often than not and in many instances I was fascinated by what I had just read.

The early poems are in the traditional form of Elizabethan love poetry, but there are enough good poems to make the reading worthwhile. Sonnet number two (and this is a traditional 14 line sonnet) is an example. It revisits the story of the hunter Acteon who stumbles on the Goddess of chastity Diana who is bathing naked in a stream. She is so outraged that she turns Acteon into a stag and his dogs tear him to pieces. This story from classical mythology has been used by any number of poets, but Greville's first line is

Faire dog, which so my heart dost tear asunder

Fair dog? could easily be read mistakenly as fair god and so we are alerted to Greville telling the story in a different way. Greville's poem about Acteon and Diana is a rarity, because he seldom falls back on classical mythology as a subject for his poems (that is with the exception of Cupid who features in several) and his imagery tends to be drawn from real life and so the reader does not feel the need of a classical education to enjoy the poems. What the reader does need is some patience because Greville's syntax can be knotty in the extreme. This is especially true in the 14 line sonnets where it is my guess that he has so many ideas to cram into each line that it becomes difficult to unpick. In my opinion his poetry becomes much more readable when he is not constricted by the sonnet form and he can let his ideas flow. Fortunately there are many examples in this collection.

SONNET LXII.

WHO worships Cupid, doth adore a boy;
Boyes earnest are at first in their delight,
But for a new, soone leaue their dearest toy,
And out of minde, as soone as out of sight;
Their ioyes be dallyings and their wealth is play,
They cry to haue, and cry to cast away.

Mars is an idol, and man's lust his skye,
Whereby his glories still are full of wounds;
Who worships him, their fame goes farre and nigh,
But still of ruine and distresse it sounds.
Yet cannot all be wonne, and who doth liue,
Must roome to neighbours and succession giue.

Those Mercurists that upon humors worke,
And so make others' skill and power their owne,
And like the climats, which farre Northward lurke,
And through long Winters must reape what is sowne;
Or like the masons, whose art building well,
Yet leaues the house for other men to dwell.

Mercurie, Cupid, Mars, they be no gods,
But humane idols, built vp by Desire;
Fruit of our boughs, whence heauen maketh rods,
And babyes1 too for child-thoughts that aspire:
Who sees their glories, on the earth must prye;
Who seeks true glory must looke to the skye.


Sonnet 62 is an example of a poem written in sestain units popular with Greville; as the collection moves forward he writes fewer 14 line sonnets. When we get to sonnet 85 he has abandoned all thoughts about Caelica and has moved on to matters that concern an older perhaps more reflective man. His Calvinist religious thoughts dominate the later poems, but also his political views. He held views which were typical of the time concerning order in the world; how everybody should know their place in society. He expresses the view that the Creator (God) has a master plan and he hints at predestination. He is obsessed with mutability, but firmly of the belief that man should accept the changes that are inevitable. He does rail against ambition and bad rulers, but stops well short of advocating any changes to the world order. Greville is not without a sense of humour. Sonnet 107 advocates taxing the rich more thoroughly and so it is no wonder that the collection was not published in his lifetime. It could also be said that there is scant evidence of misogyny: Caelica sometimes called Myra and sometimes Cynthia; goddess of the moon does not suffer the usual diatribe against women.

I said earlier in this short piece that many of the sonneteers however dull they maybe could occasionally come up with a line or two which can connect with the modern reader. Greville does this more often than not and he ends many a poem or a stanza with a rhyming couplet that makes the reading worthwhile. Greville has his admirers amongst modern critics and one or two have placed him just behind Shakespeare and Sir Phillip Sidney in the order of merit. Certainly a few of his poems from this collection have been anthologised and are available to read on the internet. I found some of his poetry a delight to read and have made notes to re-read some of them. I think he is never without interest especially within the tradition of Elizabethan sonnet writers and so I rate this collection as 4 stars.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
baswood | Jul 12, 2022 |
" He is nine parts Machiavel and Tacitus, for one part Sophocles or Seneca. In this writer's estimation of the faculties of his own mind, the understanding must have held a most tyrannical pre-eminence. Whether we look into his plays, or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect."
 
Assinalado
CharlesLamb | Jun 24, 2008 |
Thomas Wyatt -- Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey -- Philip Sidney -- Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke -- Walter Ralegh
 
Assinalado
ME_Dictionary | Mar 19, 2020 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
14
Also by
6
Membros
99
Popularidade
#191,538
Avaliação
4.2
Críticas
3
ISBN
19

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