George Puttenham - Authorship of The Arte of English Poesie

Authorship of The Arte of English Poesie

The Arte of English Poesie was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1588, and published in the following year with a dedicatory letter to Lord Burghley written by the printer Richard Field, who professed ignorance of the writer's name and position. However, alterations to the text made during the press run indicate that the author must have been alive and that Field must have known his identity. The first reference to the work was made in the preface to Sir John Harrington's translation of Orlando Furioso (1591) in reaction to Puttenham's view of translators as mere versifiers. Harrington disparages Puttenham's assertion that poetry is an art rather than a gift, holding up Puttenham's own poetry as proof because "he sheweth himself so slender a gift in it." Although Harrington does not name Puttenham, in a surviving manuscript note concerning the publication of his own book, he asks Field to publish it "in the same print that Putnams book is", which he did.

In an essay published in the second edition of William Camden's Remaines (1614), Richard Carew writes, "…look into our Imitations of all sorts of verses by any other language, and you shall finde that Sir Phillip Sidney, Maister Puttenham, Maister Stanihurst, and divers more have made use how farre wee are within compasse of a fore imagined impossibility in that behalfe". Around the same time, in his Hypercritica (not published until 1722), Edmund Bolton writes of "the elegant, witty, and artificial book of the Art of English Poetrie, (the work as the fame is) of one of Gentleman Pensioners, Puttenham". Since George Puttenham received two leases in reversion from the queen in 1588, this seems to clearly identify him as the author.

Certain biographical details in The Arte may point to a Puttenham as the author. He was educated at Oxford, and at the age of 18 he addressed an eclogue entitled Elpine to Edward VI. In his youth he had visited Spain, France, and Italy, and was better acquainted with foreign courts than with his own.

There is no direct evidence beyond Bolton's ascription to identify the author with George or Richard Puttenham, the sons of Robert Puttenham and his wife Margaret, the sister of Sir Thomas Elyot, who dedicated his treatise on the Education or Bringing up of Children to her for the benefit of her sons. Furthermore, since Bolton's ascription occurs 15 years after George's death and four after Richard's neither man would have been able to either accept or reject the attribution. Both made unhappy marriages, were constantly engaged in litigation, and were frequently in disgrace. One fact that points towards George's authorship is that Richard was in prison when the book was licensed to be printed, and when he made his will in 1597 he was in the Queen's Bench Prison. He was buried, according to John Payne Collier, at St. Clement Danes, London, on July 2, 1601. Richard Puttenham is known to have spent much of his time abroad, whereas George is only known to have left England a single time, to get the deed for Sherfield House from his brother. This agrees better with the writer's account of himself; but if the statement that he addressed Elpine to Edward VI when he was 18 years of age be taken to imply that the production of this work fell within that king's reign, the date of the author's birth cannot be placed anterior to 1529. At the date (1546) of his inheritance of his uncle, Sir Thomas Elyot's estates, Richard Puttenham was proved in an inquisition held at Newmarket to have been twenty-six years old. The history of the Puttenhams is discussed in H. H. S. Croft's edition of Elyot's Boke called the Cover nour. A careful investigation brought him to the conclusion that the evidence was in favour of Richard. There are other modern editions of the book, notably one in Joseph Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays (1811–1815). For editions with critical apparatus see Willcock and Walker's Cambridge edition of 1936 and Whigham and Rebhorn's new critical edition (Cornell UP, 2007).