William Webbe ( fl. 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 King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, 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 Grea ...

, 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 ...

'', and urged the adoption of

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

s and

sapphics The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form of 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 longest ...

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: th ...

'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 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 ...

( fl. 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