A. W. (poet)
The anonymous poet A.W. is responsible for the long poem "Complaint", printed in A Poetical Rapsody, a volume issued in 1602 by two brothers, Francis and Walter Davison.[1] In the Rapsody the poem is ascribed to Francis Davison, but in Davison's own manuscript, to "A. W.". Not only the eight rhyme-endings, but the actual words that compose them, are the same in each of eight stanzas, a virtuoso display.
The mysterious "A.W." has never been identified but the songs of "A.W." found places in many anthologies and song-books of the early seventeenth century.
References
[edit]- ^ Child, Harold H. (1907–1921). "VI. The Song-Books and Miscellanies". In Ward, Adolphus William; Waller, Alfred Rayney; Trent, William Peterfield; Erskine, John; Sherman, Stuart Pratt; Van Doren, Carl (eds.). A Poetical Rapsody; Francis Davison; "A.W."; Sir Edward Dyer. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Vol. IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 25. ISBN 1-58734-073-9 – via Bartleby.com.
Further reading
[edit]- Rollins, Hyder E. (1932). "A. W. And 'A Poetical Rhapsody'". Studies in Philology. 29 (2): 239–251. JSTOR 4172170. Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- McCarthy, Penny (2016). Pseudonymous Shakespeare: Rioting Language in the Sidney Circle. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781351907965.
- O'Callaghan, Michelle (10 December 2020). "A Poetical Rapsody: Francis Davison, the 'Printer', and the Craft of Compilation". Crafting Poetry Anthologies in Renaissance England: Early Modern Cultures of Recreation (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 193–227. doi:10.1017/9781108867412.006. ISBN 978-1-108-86741-2.
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