Rob
in terms of the ramshackle Elizabethan economy Sidney was well off. I
regard him as a kind of Rupert Brooke, but a better writer.
As for proto-Calvinism, don't get me going on that, yes, the workers
should work harder, to pay for their masters' entertainments.
Some spare, but he didn't live in a mud hut, which was what most
people outside the cities really did.
Best
Dave
2008/8/26 Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>:
>> I don't really care if Sidney wrote on horseback or not, but Sidney
>> *was* rich. Very.
>
> Sidney wasn't *that rich as things went then -- he *would have been if his
> uncle hadn't fathered an heir, at which point Sidney became simply one of
> the spares hanging around Elizabeth, short of cash, credit, and influence.
>
> He *was (which people tend to forget) politically important as a fairly
> radical Protestant spokesman, a premature-proto-Calvanist.
>
> And he *did miss out on Ms. Rich. ***
>
> There are about 15-25 decent poems in _Astrophil and Stella_, which gives it
> a higher scoring rate than any of the other English sonnet cyclers around at
> that time other than Greville and Shakespeare.
>
> Not something to be sneezed at.
>
> Rodent
>
> (Oh, the archetypical write-'em-on-horseback poet was Robert Burns, while he
> was working for the Excise as his day job. But he composed them in his head
> and wrote them down after he dismounted.
>
> There's a highly credible roumour that the ... somewhat strange ...
> punctuation of Kenneth Muir's edition of Wyatt was because he used to edit
> the texts on the train, and the punctuation get infected by the way the
> wheels clicked over the junctions in the tracks.
>
> Shades of "The Night Mail".
>
> *******
>
> XXXVII
> My mouth doth water, and my breast doth swell,
> My tongue doth itch, my thoughts in labour be:
> Listen then, lordings, with good ear to me,
> For of my life I must a riddle tell.
> Toward Auroras Court a nymph doth dwell,
> Rich in all beauties which mans eye can see;
> Beauties so farre from reach of words that we
> Abase her praise saying she doth excell;
> Rich in the treasure of deseru'd renowne,
> Rich in the riches of a royall heart,
> Rich in those gifts which giue th'eternall crowne;
> Who, though most rich in these and eu'ry part
> Which make the patents of true worldy blisse,
> Hath no misfortune but that Rich she is.
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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