The Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke Volume I: Poems, Translations, and Correspondence

by Herbert, Mary Sidney; Hannay, Margaret P.; Kinnamon, Noel J.; Brennan, Michael G.

• ISBN13: 9780198112808
• ISBN10: 0198112807
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-06-04
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, is the most important Elizabethan woman writer and patron outside the royal family. By astute use of the genres permitted to women, she supported the Protestant cause, introduced continental literary genres, expanded opportunities for later womenwriters, and influenced seventeenth-century lyric and drama by such writers as John Donne, George Herbert, Mary Wroth, and William Shakespeare. This scholarly edition in two volumes is the first to include all her extant works: Volume I prints her three original poems, the disputed 'Dolefull Lay ofClorinda', her translations from Petrarch, Mornay, and Garnier, and all her known letters. Volume II contains her metrical paraphrases of Psalms 44-150. The edition also provides a biographical introduction, discussion of her sources and methods of composition, textual annotation, and a detailedcommentary.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
References and Abbreviations	xiii
Editorial Procedure	xxv
Chronology	xxx
Introduction
Life	1	(20)
Origins, Early Reception, and Influence	21	(34)
Methods of Composition and Translation	55	(26)
Original Works
`A Dialogue between two shepheards, Thenot and Piers, in praise of Astrea'
Literary Context	81	(8)
Text	89	(3)
`Even now that Care'
Literary Context	92	(10)
Text	102	(3)
`To the Angell spirit of the most excellent Sir Phillip Sidney'
Literary Context	105	(5)
Text	110	(3)
Variant printed in Samuel Daniel's Workes (1623)	113	(6)
Disputed Work
`The Dolefull Lay of Clorinda'
Literary Context	119	(14)
Text	133	(6)
Translations
Antonius
Robert Garnier
Literary Context	139	(8)
Fidelity to Originals	147	(5)
Text	152	(56)
A Discourse of Life and Death by Philippe de Mornay
Literary Context	208	(12)
Fidelity to Originals	220	(9)
Text	229	(26)
The Triumph of Death by Francis Petrarch
Literary Context	255	(13)
Fidelity to Originals	268	(5)
Text	273	(25)
Correspondence
Manuscript Letters
Printed Letters Attributed to Mary Sidney Herbert, Dowager Countess of Pembroke	298	(4)
Transmission and Authority of Texts	302	(17)
Commentary	319