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. 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
- 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
- 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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