George Gascoigne was an English poet, soldier and unsuccessful courtier. He is considered the most important poet of the early Elizabethan era, following Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and leading to the emergence of Philip Sidney. He was the first poet to deify Queen Elizabeth I, in effect establishing her cult as a virgin goddess married to her kingdom and subjects. His most noted works include A Discourse of the Adventures of Master FJ , an account of courtly intrigue and one of the earliest English prose fictions; The Supposes, , an early translation of Ariosto and the first comedy written in English prose, which was used by Shakespeare as a source for The Taming of the Shrew; the frequently anthologised short poem "Gascoignes wodmanship" and "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or
ryme in English" , the first essay on English versification.
Wikipedia
“Suffiseth this to proove my theame withall,
That every bullet hath a lighting place.”
"The Fruites of Warre", line 467, from The Posies (1575); p. 412.
"The Lullabie of a Lover", line 1; p. 272.
A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1573)
Thomas Nashe, Preface to Robert Greene's Menaphon (1589), cited from G. Gregory Smith (ed.) Elizabethan Critical Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1904) vol. 1, p. 315.
Criticism
“Full many wanton babes have I,
Which must be stilld with lullabie.”
"The Lullabie of a Lover", line 7; p. 272.
A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1573)
G. W. Pigman III, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) vol. 21, p. 585.
Criticism
"Gascoignes Good Morrow", line 41; p. 287.
A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1573)
"Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme in English", from The Posies; pp. 457-8.
