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
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
, and was a tutor for distinguished families, including the two sons of Edward Sulyard of Flemyngs,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
, 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'' (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
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
'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
''The Shepheardes Calender'' was Edmund Spenser's first major poetic work, published in 1579. In emulation of Virgil's first work, the ''Eclogues'', Spenser wrote this series of pastorals at the commencement of his career. However, Spenser's m ...
'', 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
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
's first two ''
Eclogues
The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil.
Background
Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...
.'' A letter by Webbe to
Robert Wilmot (
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 ...
1568–1608) 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