| For a work of its length and critical sophistication, The Arte of English Poesie has attracted relatively little attention since its anonymous publication in 1589. The text has suffered, in short, from a lack of "context." Until the Cambridge editors (Gladys Willcock and Alice Walker, 1936) established the probability of George Puttenham's authorship, the treatise lacked immediate bearing on Elizabethan literary circles, controversies, and extant literature. To reassert the significance of Puttenham's treatise, the present editor has established the first authoritative text for the Arte, related Puttenham to his rhetorical, poetic, and critical sources in textual notes, and provided full textual apparatus (a bibliographical analysis, a critical introduction, a table of rhetorical figures, and a critical bibliography). The new text was edited and prepared on a word processor, allowing subsequent students of Elizabethan criticism and poetry to access and analyze the work electronically. With an authoritative, annotated text, students of Renaissance literature may better evaluate the historical and critical significance of Puttenham's treatise. |
