John Lyly [antikvár]

PREFACE CERTAIN FEATURES of this book spring from an original intention to write a short critical account of Lyly's work, concentrating on what was of aesthetic value and leaving scholarly problems and documentation for my Clarendon Press edition of the Works. This did not prove possible; I have been obliged (by the nature of Lyly's virtues) to interpose more explanation between the author and the reader than I intended, and in particular to sketch out alternative perspectives in the literary history of the time—alternative, that is, to those most current today. I have persevered in simplification, none the less, for the necessity to introduce and explain Lyly to the modern world still seems strong. I have translated foreign languages, wherever possible, and I have modernized the spelling and punctuation of old authors; names and titles I have retained in their old form, however, if that seemed sufficiently standard to make the modernization awkward. In the course of writing I have contracted many debts, not least to the books of predecessors; the works of John Nichols, E. K. Chambers, and R. Warwick Bond have come to seem like a condition of life. Above all I have depended on the massive labours of Albert Feuillerat; I have been able to move quickly through the life of Lyly, because Feuillerat had already uncovered the basic facts and reduced them to order. I have seldom been able to agree with Feuillerat's critical conclusions, but my very disagreement is dependent on his researches. My debts to the dead cannot be repaid unless I have added a mite to the understanding of the past; the living exact a less terrif)-ing rate of interest; the many personal favours I have met with can find some answer in personal acknowledgement. D. J. Gordon and William Ringler read and criticized an early draft. My colleagues in Liverpool, Kenneth Muir,