Elizabethan poetry : a bibliography and first-line index of English verse, 1559-1603 /

This hefty set caps a project begun by Ringler, now deceased. Two earlier volumes (Bibliography and Index of English Verse Printed 1476-1558, CH, Sep'89, 27-0041; and Bibliography and Index of English Verse in Manuscript, 1501-1558, 1992) followed Index of Middle English Verse (1943) and its Supplement (1965), which together provide extensive indexing of English poetry through the end of Elizabeth's reign. For the present title, thousands of printed books and manuscripts were perused to identify some 32,500 individual works of verse. May's introduction claims coverage for 99 percent of the period's printed verse, but it acknowledges the impossibility of covering manuscript poetry so well, despite consulting manuscripts from 93 archives. Since Elizabethan Poetry is confined to verse in sources dated between 1559 and 1603, rather than works written then, it includes some poetry of the medieval period but little Shakespeare. The bibliography section lists the indexed sources, arranging printed works by STC number and manuscripts by location, giving brief citations and references to the first-line index, the greater part of the work. In that index, first-line entries identify the source and the signature or folio leaf on which the verse begins, and they supply a coded indication of its structure, detailing lines, stanzas, rhyme schemes, and rhythm. Indexes cover names of poets, fictional names and topics, historical persons and events, accompanying illustrations, genres, musical settings, rhyme schemes and verse forms, burdens and refrains, scribes and owners, subjects, subscriptions, titles, and translations. The extensive coverage of verse of the period allows general observations concerning its characteristics via use of these indexes--e.g., the ascendancy of secular poetry over the religious poetry that dominated previous years. Elizabethan Poetry and its predecessors are established among standard reference works for English literary history. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General and academic readers. W. S. Brockman Pennsylvania State University, University Park Campus