The Poetry of Breton (Nicholas) by Nicholas Breton
Nicholas Breton was a prominent English poet of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, known for his versatile contributions to pastoral, lyric, and satirical poetry. His work reflects the rich tradition of the Elizabethan era, engaging with themes of nature, love, and spirituality. Breton's lyrical prowess is evident in poems like "A Sweet Lullaby," which explores complex emotions surrounding birth and familial relationships, while his pastoral verses celebrate rural life and seasonal beauty. He was closely connected to notable literary figures of his time, including Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, which suggests a strong scholarly background, possibly linked to Oxford. Breton's ability to blend heartfelt emotion with sophisticated literary techniques, such as metaphysical conceits, underlines his artistic significance. His anthological efforts in collections like "Bower of Delights" further demonstrate his role in shaping the poetic landscape of his time. Overall, Breton's work embodies the spirit of Renaissance creativity, reflecting both the vibrancy of his era and the personal depth of his experiences.
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The Poetry of Breton (Nicholas) by Nicholas Breton
First published:Bower of Delights, c. 1591; Pilgrimage to Paradise, 1592; Arbor of Amorous Devices, 1597; Melancholic Humours, 1600; Poems in England’s Helicon, 1600; The Passionate Shepherd, 1604
Critical Evaluation:
Who can live in heart so glad
Thus Breton asks and gives the answer in THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD, just as Marlowe and Raleigh and other Elizabethans, from Sidney and Spenser to Shakespeare and Jonson, lyrically spoke. The pastoral, the idyll, the lyric, and the satire reached classic heights during the period, with Nicholas Breton one of its most artistic voices.
His voice was varied; his background was obscure; he was praised and ridiculed by his eminent peers. He possessed both versatility and refinement as a writer of satire, romance, pastorals in prose and verse, but he excelled in lyric verse. His devotion to letters is unquestioned and attested to by one after another of the Elizabethan giants. As a friend of Sidney, a protege of Spenser, he was the devoted servant to a great patroness of poets, Sidney’s sister, the Countess of Pembroke. Most critics agree that this patronage, especially in Breton’s allegorical PILGRIMAGE TO PARADISE, brought to the highest his considerable talent. Also, in the lines “Nor was the labor little for to climb/The fiery ashes of a phoenix nest” he speaks not only with religious fervor of the risen Christ but of Sidney’s memory.
Apparently Breton was one of the first careful anthologizers, including leading artists in his BOWER OF DELIGHTS and ARBOR OF AMOROUS DEVICES contributing himself to another collection sometimes ascribed to him, ENGLAND’S HELICON. His scholarly nature suggests an Oxford background, accented by dedications to “schollars and students of Oxford.” His satire, expressed through the pseudonym of Pasquil, is not up to the wittier works of Nashe and Green, though he obviously moved among the university wits, “the tribe of Ben.”
The dispute of his religious sympathies does not seem important today. His epitaph to Spenser, his invocation of the memory of Sidney, his devotional fervors, are all full of passionate yearning and rich imagery. His true religion, however, was chivalric and pastoral love, and his most memorable poems serve this cult:
Good Muse, rock me asleep
Contrapuntal to such effusions is another vein, richer in both poetry and prose, of country life and rural scenery and customs: “Shall we go dance the hay, the hay?” expresses this theme, and “Sylvan Muses, can ye sing/ Of the beauty of the spring?” celebrates all things of nature, birds, trees, and flowers, with mythological overtones. However, one of his most celebrated poems, “A Sweet Lullaby,” has a darker theme:
Come, little babe, come, silly soul,
The poet asks the “little wretch” born out of wedlock to think kindly of his misguided father and miserable mother and then surprisingly acknowledges the child’s paternity:
Come, little boy, and rock asleep!
Again, the poet anticipates the later metaphysical writers in his use of conceit, elaborate metaphors turned on key phrases: “Lovely kind, and kindly loving,/Such a mind were worth the moving;/Truly fair, and fairly true,/Where are all these but in you?” He elaborates the “Sweet, fair, wise, kind, blessed true,/Blessed be all these in you,” in his MELANCHOLIC HUMOURS. In “An Assurance” he asks, “Say that I should say I love ye,/Would you say ’tis but a saying?” and “Think I think that love should know ye,/Will you think ’tis but a thinking?” and then goes on to vow his love in the high hope that she will love in return. These witty and pretty conceits are of a high order and Breton deserves their fame.
In his prose Nicholas Breton wrote “essaies, Morall and Divine,” a “conference between scholler and angler,” and FANTASTICKES, prose pictures of months, hours, and festivals. But he also wrote A POEM TO OUR SAVIOUR’S PASSION and TOYES OF AN IDLE HEAD, a “Floorish upon Fancie.” In short, he was a Renaissance Man and exhibited virtu, the vigor and the erudition and restless activity of his day, not inferior at times to those better remembered in the history of English literature.