Dear Professor Lochman,
Thank you so much for your considerate response. I was referring, for
instance, to Ovidian texts such as Chapman's *Ovid's Banquet of Sense* and
*Shadow of Night*, Campion's *Umbra*, which have not received their due;
for pastorals, Drayton's *Shepheards Garland*, and, for texts harly ever
mentioned or republished, John Dickenson's *Shepheards Comlaint*,
Shakespeare's "A Lover's Complaint," William's Smith's *Chloris: The
Complaint of the Passionate Despised Shepheard*, poems in *Englands
Helicon* and *A Poeticall Rhapsody*.
Yes, as I think you gathered, many of the works I am considering belong in
the denied Euphuistic and Anglo-Latin traditions: Robert Greene's
*Menaphon*, Thomas Lodge's *Rosalynd*, Dickenson's *Arisbas* are all
Euphuistic and Ovidian pastorals; the *Calender* was transalted into Latin
soon after it was published by one "John Dove" who also, like Campion and
Dickenson, wrote Ovidian verse in Latin.
I agree with you completely about some of the reasons for the popularity of
the sonnet in the sixteenth century. But so many sonnets -- Shakespeare's
of course, the sonnets in Barnfield's *Cynthia*, but also, for instance,
Henry Constable's *Diana,* Drayton's *Idea*, John Dickenson's *Sonnets to
Philomel,* Richard Lynch's *Diella*, (all intertextually resonant) differ
markedly from what most current critics would call "Petrarchan," even after
refinement.
I agree with you and Dorothy Stephens about the need of nuanced refinement
of our understanding of the literature of the period. I believe, as is
clear by now, in the need of nuanced and refined understanding of any
category. I believe, though, that in the spirit of the sixteenth century,
it would help refined and precise thinking if we used different terms,
especially terms used by Renaissance rhetoricians and poets themselves, not
twentieth-century literary theorists whose distinctions are far from being
as rich and accurate, to delineate these nuances. Not doing so, for
instance continuing to talk of all sonnets as instances of "Petrarchism"
and other such generalized categories, we risk remaining in a state of
confusion regarding the texts we study. Comfortable to many in the field, I
realize by now, but not at all intellectually and professionally
responsible.
Shirley Sharon-Zisser
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