The Poetry of Charles Cotton, 2 Vols.

This is the first complete edition of the poetry of Charles Cotton (1630-1687), one of the most interesting poets of the mid-seventeenth century, who wrote in many styles and many voices. Paul Hartle draws upon all of the available manuscripts and early printed editions, and unites the different components of Cotton's prolific output.

This is the first complete edition of the poetry of Charles Cotton (1630-1687), one of the most interesting poets of the mid-seventeenth century. Although better known as translator of Montaigne's Essays and most of all as a fly-fisherman and author of the second part of The Compleat Angler, a classic work which has never been out of print, Cotton's poetry has attracted notice and admiration across the centuries from readers as diverse as Samuel Pepys and William Wordsworth. Celebrated in his lifetime as a poet of rural retirement and author of an immensely successful comical travesty of Virgil's Aeneid, Scarronides (1664-65), his posthumously published Poems on Several Occasions (1689) reveal a poet of many styles and many voices, capable of delicate cavalier lyric, Restoration bawdry, political passion, and moody Pindaric ode. His self-characterisation in burlesque travelogues and intimate epistles gives a sense of an attractively companionable and engaging writer. This is the f irst edition of Cotton's poetry based on consultation of all of the available manuscripts and early printed editions. It contains two major works not hitherto edited as well as full commentary on all texts. In uniting the different parts of Cotton's prolific output, Paul Hartle offers readers of his verse a 'Compleat' Cotton.

Inhaltsverzeichnis:

Volume 1
General Introduction
Textual Introduction
Poems from Manuscript:
An Elegy upon the death of that hopefull, and learned gentleman Henry Lord Hastings, who died of the small Pox
Poems from the Derby Manuscript
Poems from Poems on Several Occasions (1689)
The Anglers Ballad
Textual Notes
Commentary
Volume 2
Poems from Printed Texts:
Scarronides I
Scarronides IV
Horace
Burlesque upon Burlesque
The Wonders of the Peake
To my Worthy Friend Mr Edmund Prestwich, on his Translation of Hippolitus.
The Answer.
An Epigramme to the Authour, upon his Tragedy of OVID.
To the Authour On Captain HANNIBAL, An Epigramme.
[HORACE BOOK I] ODE VI. By C. C. Esq; To AGRIPPA.
On my Friend Mr. ALEXANDER BROME
On the brave Mareschal de Montluc, and his Commentaries writ by his own hand.
The Explanation of the Frontispiece [The Compleat Gamester].
ON THE EXCELLENT POEMS OF MY Most Worthy Friend Mr. THOMAS FLATMAN.
To my Old, and most Worthy Friend, Mr. IZAAK WALTON, on his Life of Dr. DONNE, andc.
The Retirement. Stanzes Irreguliers to Mr. Izaak Walton.
To the Admir'd Astrea.
The IDEA. By Charles Cotton, Esq;
Doubtful Work:
Old Age. Against old men taking physick
Textual Notes
Commentary
Appendix 1: 1689 Table of Contents and location in this edition
Appendix 2: Virgil Line References in Scarronides
Index of First Lines