William Webbe (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1568–1591) was an English critic and translator. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and was a tutor for distinguished families, including the two sons of Edward Sulyard of Flemyngs, Essex, and later the children of Henry Grey of

Pirgo Pyrgo Park is a park at Havering-atte-Bower in the London Borough of Havering, in North East London, England. It is the site of the former Pirgo Palace, built before 1540 and demolished by 1814; and of Pyrgo House, built 1852, which lasted les ...

, also in Essex. Webbe wrote a ''

Discourse of English Poetrie Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...

'' (1586), dedicated to Sulyard, in which he discusses prosody and reviews English poetry up to his own day. He argued that the dearth of good English poetry since Chaucer's day was not due to lack of poetic ability, or to the poverty of the language, but to the want of a proper system of prosody. He decried rhyming verse, showed enthusiasm for Spenser's '' The Shepheardes Calender'', and urged the adoption of hexameters and

sapphics The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form of Quatrain, four lines. Originally composed in quantitative verse and unrhymed, since the Middle Ages imitations of the form typically feature rhyme and accentual prosody. It is "the ...

for English verse He also translated Virgil's first two '' Eclogues.'' A letter by Webbe to

Robert Wilmot Robert Duncan Wilmot, (16 October 1809 – 13 February 1891) was a Canadian politician and a Father of Confederation. Early life and family Wilmot was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick on 16 October 1809. He was the son of John McNeil an ...

(

1568–1608) is prepended to the 1591 edition of Wilmot's play ''Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund''.Wilmot, Robert. ''The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund''. London, 1591. The letter, praising Wilmot for having decided to publish the tragedy, acts as a prefacing endorsement of the play.

Notes

References

External links

''A Discourse of English poetrie''
at Internet Archive. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Webbe, William English translators 1568 births 16th-century English writers 16th-century male writers 16th-century English educators Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge 1591 deaths Translators of Virgil