Ralegh's Poetry

A new edition of Ralegh's poetry is long overdue. Several new Ralegh poems have come to light since Agnes Latham's edition was first printed in the 1950s. More too, have been suggested by Pierre Lefranc in his pioneering study of Ralegh's poetry and prose. What I have done in this new edition of his work is to set his poetry against the background of his life and everything he was writing at the time in his letters and his prose works. What emerges from this is a clear progression from the halting verses of the ambitious courtier to the witty love poetry of the established favourite. Then came disgrace and the long riddling 'epic' that he wrote to the Queen. Ralegh had found his unique theme in Neoplatonism. Ordinary human love fell far short of the idealised love he professed for the Queen. In later life, facing exclusion from the court, then imprisonment and the threat of execution, he became a formidable satirist and developed this theme in a new context to show how far the behaviour of his fellow courtiers fell short of the Platonic ideal.

Ralegh was the Queen's established favourite for twelve whole years and what he wrote about her at that time-especially in 'Cynthia'-is naturally of interest because it tells us what it must have been like to be at the beck and call of a Tudor monarch. But Ralegh's poetry is interesting for other reasons, too. His best poems are witty and lyrical or sharply satirical and would find a place in any anthology.