The Purple Island, Or The Isle Of Man: Together With Piscatorie Eclogs And Other Poeticall Miscellanies. By P. F.

Fletcher, Phineas (1582-1650)

Verlag: Printed by the Printers to the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 1633

[Bound with:] Fletcher, Giles (1585/6-1623) Christs victorie and triumph in heaven and earth, over and after death. The second edition. Cambridge: printed [by Thomas and John Buck] for Francis Green, 1632 [Bound with:] Fletcher, Phineas (1582-1650) Locustae, vel Pietas Iesuitica. Per Phineam Fletcher Collegii Regalis Cantabrigiae [Second title page:] The Locusts, or Appollyonists. By Phineas Fletcher of Kings Colledge in Cambridge. [Cambridge]: Apud Thomam & Ioannem Bucke, celeberrimae Academiae typographos, Ann. Dom. MDCXXVII. [1627] $5,800 Quarto: 18.3 x 1.3 cm. Three books bound as one: I. (Purple Island): [16], 181, [7], 96, 101-130, [2] p. Collation: 4 (-blank 1), 4, A-Z4, (with blank Z4 present), [chi]2 (- blank chi2), A-L4, M4, O-R4 (lvs. M3-4 mis-signed N1-2). II. (Christs Victorie): [16], 84 p. Collation: A4 (A1 blank but for device), 4, A-K4, L2. III. (The Locusts): [8], 100 p. Collation: 4 (with blank 1), A-M4, N2 FIRST EDITION of The Purple Island and The Locusts. SECOND EDITION of Christs Victorie. Bound in contemporary speckled calf, boards framed by three gold rules, spine with gold ornaments and (later) label. Repairs to corners of upper board, hinges cracked (joints starting), small losses to spine. Internally, all three works very fresh and crisp with a few instances of the lightest dampstain. Excellent. Provenance: Robert Pirie (bookplate.) A fine sammelband of works by the brothers Giles and Phineas Fletcher, including two verse epics: Phineas' Fletcher's "The Locusts" ("the most highly developed of the numerous poetic treatments of the notorious Gunpowder Plot of 1605") and "Christs victorie" ("which should be accorded a prominent place in the history of English epic writing.") The third work, Phineas' "Purple Island" is an important verse allegory, with both Vesalian and Spenserian affinities. I. "The Purple Island" "The main part of Fletcher's chief poem, 'The Purple Island, or The Isle of Man' (1633) derives from the medieval theme of the 'castle of the body' and develops the conceit of the island as the human body, in which the bones are the rocky foundations, the veins are brooks, and so forth, in meticulous detail based on the anatomy of Galen and Vesalius. The analogy is made by both Spenser (Faerie Queene, II. 9) and Du Bartas, but neither gives the subject Fletcher's peculiar mixture of scientific precision and didacticism. This portion of the poem ends with an epic catalogue and an allegorical battle between the vices and virtues to which the body is subject. Although Spenser was his master, Phineas is more immediately inspired by the emblems of Francis Quarles and the metaphors of medieval science. "[The book] includes seven autobiographical and 'piscatory' eclogues (praised by that inveterate angler Izaak Walton), epithalamia, elegies, and a concluding poem by Fletcher's neighbor at Hilgay, Francis Quarles, who addresses him as the 'Spenser of this age.' Fletcher himself pays extended tribute to his master Spenser in the Purple Island. (Ruoff, Crowell's Handbook of Elizabethan & Stuart Literature, p. 160) ESTC S102332; STC 11082; Grolier, Langland to Wither 101; Hayward 67; Krivatsy-NLM 4121; Wellcome I,2312; Westwood & Sachell 95 II. "Christs victorie" "Giles Fletcher(brother of Phineas) began writing poetry at a very young age, contributing some conventional elegiac verses'Upon the Death of Eliza'to a commemorative volume on the death ofQueen Elizabethand the accession ofJames I(1603). His next and certainly principal work, after which he wrote almost nothing and on which his fame rests, appeared in 1610: this edition ofChrists Victorie, and Triumph in Heaven, and Earth, over, and after Deathwas the only one published in his lifetime (there was a second edition in 1632, like the first printed in Cambridge). Fletcherdedicates his poem toThomas Neville, in terms effusive even for the time; then he proceeds to his prefatory remarks 'To the Reader' in which he defends 'prophane Poetrie' that neve. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 4467

Bibliografische Details

Titel: The Purple Island, Or The Isle Of Man: ...
Verlag: Printed by the Printers to the University of Cambridge, Cambridge
Erscheinungsdatum: 1633
Einband: Hardcover
Zustand: Fine
Signiert: Signatur des Verfassers