Remnants of Another Time: Prince Henry Stuart and the Doubtful Temporalities of Poetry Books
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: James I's oldest son, Henry Frederick, died in 1612, at the age of eighteen.Dozens of poets, including several prominent ones, published elegies to the prince in the months after his death.This essay considers these printed laments as representative of a pessimistic turn in seventeenth-century printed poetry.Arguing that this streak of skepticism about the effectiveness of poetic publication is more than just an immediate reaction to a national catastrophe, the essay compares the elegies to a dedication to the prince from during his lifetime and examines their role in the development of the printed verse miscellany. PASTS AND FUTURESHenry Frederick, Prince of Wales, died in 1612, at the age of eighteen, after a brief illness.Among many other political, social, and cultural ramifications, his death served as a direct impetus for the publication of poetry: a number of poets previously active primarily in manuscript circulation-including John Donne, George Herbert, William Drummond, and others-published poems in response to his death.For these poets, as for much of England and Scotland, Henry had been an emblem of hope, and remained one in death. 1 The hopes about him were not always held with equal sincerity or conviction, but they were rhetorically, politically, and personally significant to many people
Source: Renaissance Quarterly
DOI: 10.1017/rqx.2025.54
Author: Andrew Mattison
Institution: University of Toledo
Language: English
Subfield: Classics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W4412819110