Rebecca M. Rush - The Fetters of Rhyme: Liberty and Poetic Form in Early Modern England

THE FETTERS OF RHYME

LIBERTY AND POETIC FORM IN
EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

Rebecca M. Rush

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2021 by Princeton University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rush, Rebecca M., 1987- author.

Title: The fetters of rhyme : liberty and poetic form in early modern England / Rebecca M. Rush.

Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020034537 (print) | LCCN 2020034538 (ebook) | ISBN 9780691212555 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780691215686 (ebook)
Version 1.0

Subjects: LCSH: English poetryEarly modern, 1500-1700History and criticism. | English languageRhyme. | Poetics. | Couplets, EnglishHistory and criticism.

Classification: LCC PR535.R48 R87 2021 (print) | LCC PR535.R48 (ebook) | DDC 821/.409dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034537

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034538

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Editorial: Anne Savarese and Jenny Tan
Production Editorial: Ellen Foos
Jacket Design: Pamela Schnitter
Production: Erin Suydam
Publicity: Alyssa Sanford and Amy Stewart
Copyeditor: Kathleen Kageff

Jacket art: Facsimile of 16th century wood engraving, 1862 / The Print Collector / Alamy Stock Photo

This book has been composed in Miller

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THIS BOOK HAS BENEFITED IMMEASURABLY from the generosity and rigor of many readers and interlocutors. David Kastan, David Quint, and John Rogers shaped the project from its earliest stages and ensured that each chapter remained in touch with the subtleties of history and the richness of poetic language. The knowledge, guidance, and conversation of David Bromwich, Ardis Butterfield, Jill Campbell, Ben Glaser, Cathy Nicholson, and Ayesha Ramachandran also enriched many pages of this book. From the first days of my arrival at Virginia, conversations with Steve Cushman, Elizabeth Fowler, Bruce Holsinger, Clare Kinney, Katharine Maus, John Parker, Jahan Ramazani, and Chip Tucker sharpened my thinking about form and poetic reading. I am particularly grateful to Steve, Elizabeth, and John for reading drafts with such thoughtfulness and to Chip and Steve for discussing metrical matters. The comments of the two anonymous readers at Princeton University Press deepened the book by clarifying its stakes and rooting its poetic argument more firmly in history. I would also like to thank Aaron Prattthe Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austinfor going out of his way to help me obtain images of rhyme charts from Puttenham and Drayton. I am very grateful to Anne Savarese, Jenny Tan, Ellen Foos, Kathleen Kageff, and the staff at Princeton University Press for turning a bundle of pages into a real book.

My thinking about poetic form and my readings of particular poems have been formed in conversation with my students at University of Virginia, particularly those in my courses Renaissance Lyric; Renaissance Poetry and Poetics; and Milton.

I owe thanks to many of my compeers at Yale for their conversation and counsel, including Carla Baricz, Sam Fallon, Brad Holden, Matt Hunter, Seo Hee Im, Angus Ledingham, Tessie Prakas, Aaron Pratt, Palmer Rampell, Justin Sider, and Antonio Templanza, but I am particularly indebted to Maggie Deli for being a tireless listener, editor, and friend.

The foundations for this project were laid when I was an undergraduate at UNC, where Jessica Wolfe and Reid Barbour first inspired my interest in early modern literature. Reid taught me everything I know about Milton and seventeenth-century literature. And Jessicas knowledge, prudence, and bigheartedness guided me through the wandering wood and errors den many a time and oft.

Parts of the introduction and chapter two appeared as Licentious Rhymers: John Donne and the Late-Elizabethan Couplet Revival, English LiteraryHistory 84, no. 2 (Fall 2017): 52958, 2017 The Johns Hopkins University Press. It is reprinted with permission in expanded and revised form.