William Webbe, 'A Discourse of English Poetry' (1586)
Hernández-Santano, Sonia
William Webbe's A Discourse of English Poetry (1586) is the first printed treatise exclusively dedicated to devising a canon for the definition of poetry in England. Traditionally eclipsed by the academic centrality of Philip Sidney's The Defence of Poesy (c. 1580, published 1595) and George Puttenham's The Art of English Poesy (1589), this is the first critical edition of the essay in over a hundred years. This volume presents a modern-spelli...