“Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612

In c. 1599, the London stationer William Jaggard produced two editions of The Passionate Pilgrime, a collection of twenty poems best known for its inclusion of five sonnets by William Shakespeare. Having been lengthened to include a total of twenty-nine poems, a third edition of this printed miscell...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lindsay Ann Reid
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institut du Monde Anglophone 2012-04-01
Series:Etudes Epistémè
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/419
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849328873524690944
author Lindsay Ann Reid
author_facet Lindsay Ann Reid
author_sort Lindsay Ann Reid
collection DOAJ
description In c. 1599, the London stationer William Jaggard produced two editions of The Passionate Pilgrime, a collection of twenty poems best known for its inclusion of five sonnets by William Shakespeare. Having been lengthened to include a total of twenty-nine poems, a third edition of this printed miscellany was released by Jaggard just over a decade later in 1612. This article centers around Jaggard’s decision to repackage the expanded contents of the 1612 Passionate Pilgrime with a title page that not only intriguingly advertises the collection’s inclusion of ‘Certaine Amorous Sonnets, betweene Venus and Adonis,’ but also draws particular attention to a newly appended pair of ‘Loue-Epistles’ purportedly written by the mythological figures Paris and Helen. Taking as my particular focus the acts of writing described on The Passionate Pilgrime’s 1612 title page, I contend that these putative acts provide audiences with a fictitious etiology of the miscellany’s origins. Like so many other early printed miscellanies, Jaggard’s volume exploits the perceived exclusivity of scribal coterie poetry; rather than positing The Passionate Pilgrime’s contents as texts commemorating actual courtly occasions between historical Tudor or Stuart elites (as earlier printed anthologies such as Richard Tottel’s Songes and Sonettes often had), however, Jaggard’s title page draws upon established generic conventions as well as the literary precedent provided by Ovid’s Heroides to reimagine acts of literary composition transpiring within a well-known mythological story-world.
format Article
id doaj-art-9853ee5b99934baeb4ac36aa27de089e
institution Kabale University
issn 1634-0450
language English
publishDate 2012-04-01
publisher Institut du Monde Anglophone
record_format Article
series Etudes Epistémè
spelling doaj-art-9853ee5b99934baeb4ac36aa27de089e2025-08-20T03:47:25ZengInstitut du Monde AnglophoneEtudes Epistémè1634-04502012-04-012110.4000/episteme.419“Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612Lindsay Ann ReidIn c. 1599, the London stationer William Jaggard produced two editions of The Passionate Pilgrime, a collection of twenty poems best known for its inclusion of five sonnets by William Shakespeare. Having been lengthened to include a total of twenty-nine poems, a third edition of this printed miscellany was released by Jaggard just over a decade later in 1612. This article centers around Jaggard’s decision to repackage the expanded contents of the 1612 Passionate Pilgrime with a title page that not only intriguingly advertises the collection’s inclusion of ‘Certaine Amorous Sonnets, betweene Venus and Adonis,’ but also draws particular attention to a newly appended pair of ‘Loue-Epistles’ purportedly written by the mythological figures Paris and Helen. Taking as my particular focus the acts of writing described on The Passionate Pilgrime’s 1612 title page, I contend that these putative acts provide audiences with a fictitious etiology of the miscellany’s origins. Like so many other early printed miscellanies, Jaggard’s volume exploits the perceived exclusivity of scribal coterie poetry; rather than positing The Passionate Pilgrime’s contents as texts commemorating actual courtly occasions between historical Tudor or Stuart elites (as earlier printed anthologies such as Richard Tottel’s Songes and Sonettes often had), however, Jaggard’s title page draws upon established generic conventions as well as the literary precedent provided by Ovid’s Heroides to reimagine acts of literary composition transpiring within a well-known mythological story-world.https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/419
spellingShingle Lindsay Ann Reid
“Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612
Etudes Epistémè
title “Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612
title_full “Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612
title_fullStr “Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612
title_full_unstemmed “Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612
title_short “Certaine Amorous Sonnets, Betweene Venus and Adonis”: fictive acts of writing in The Passionate Pilgrime of 1612
title_sort certaine amorous sonnets betweene venus and adonis fictive acts of writing in the passionate pilgrime of 1612
url https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/419
work_keys_str_mv AT lindsayannreid certaineamoroussonnetsbetweenevenusandadonisfictiveactsofwritinginthepassionatepilgrimeof1612