One other that might be added to this list is Milton's sonnet "A book was
writ of late called Tetrachordon," where the book "walk'd the town a while."
Milton does not address his book, and the walking book is something other
than the poem that describes it, but Milton very likely alludes to Horace's
Epistles, as J. H. Finley argued in 1937.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Farnham" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: Goe little booke => summary, compendium, and thanks
> To summarize the "Goe little booke" research: the earliest known use of
> the phrase/device is in the poems of Catullus, in about 50 BC. Here, the
> word "little" was significant, since small, highly crafted art was viewed
> by the artist as more perfect, nimble, and perhaps uniquely potent
> (because of its concentration of meaning), compared with the verbose
> epics of the past (S. Willett's info, my quite possibly incorrect
> extrapolation of the artist's intent).
>
> The phrase appears in the following (some of which are definitely not
> "little" books):
>
> ~50 BC: Catullus: poems use "libellus" (= "little book") "in the sense of
> a small-scale volume of highly-polished verse."
>
> ~15 BC: Horace, Epistles
>
> ~10 AD: Ovid, Tristia
>
> ~92 AD: Statius, "Thebaid"
>
> ~1385: Chaucer, "Troilus and Crysede"
>
> ~1500: Stephen Hawes, "The Pastime of Pleasure"
>
> ~1590: Spenser, "The Shepheardes Calender"
>
> ~1621: Robert Burton, "Anatomy of Melancholy"
>
> ~1820: Byron, "Don Juan"
>
> ~1890: Robert Louis Stevenson, "New Poems"
>
> ~1890: Oscar Wilde
>
>
> Thanks to all who contributed!
> Kevin Farnham
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