Sonnet Sequence - List of English Sonnet Sequences

List of English Sonnet Sequences

During the late 16th century and early 17th century a large number of sonnet sequences were written in England. The most notable are:

  • Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella (pubd. 1591, 108 sonnets and 11 songs to Penelope Rich. The first true sonnet sequence in English, written between 1580 and 1584)
  • Edmund Spenser's Amoretti (pubd. 1594, 88 sonnets and an Epithalamion to Elizabeth Boyle)
  • Samuel Daniel's Delia (1592, 50 sonnets)
  • Michael Drayton's Idea's Mirror (pubd. 1594, 64 sonnets to Phoebe), later reworkded as Idea (1619, 73 sonnets)
  • Fulke Greville's Caelica (1633, 109 sonnets)
  • Shakespeare's sonnets (pubd. 1609, 154 sonnets to a variety of unnamed people, both male and female)
  • Lady Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus (1621, 48 sonnets, included in Urania. The only notable sonnet sequence during the English Renaissance to be written by a woman)

Other sonnet sequences include:

  • Anne Lok's (or Lock or Locke) Meditation of a Penitent Sinner (1560, 26 sonnets of a devotional nature based on Psalm 51, the first known sonnet sequence in English)
  • Thomas Watson's ΕΚΑΤΟΜΠΑΟΙΑ or Passionate Centurie of Love (1582, 100 semi-sonnets, most of which are of eighteen lines each, but still emulate the general idea of Petrarch, whom Watson had translated into Latin)
  • Thomas Lodge (1593, 40 sonnets to Phillis)
  • Henry Constable's Diana (1592)
  • William Percy's Sonnets to the fairest Coelia (1593)
  • The Tears of Fancie (1593, 60 sonnets formerly attributed to Thomas Watson
  • Barnabe Barnes's Partenophil and Parthenophe (1593, 104 sonnets)
  • Giles Fletcher's Licia (1593, 52 sonnets)
  • Zepheria, a collection of 40 sonnets by an unknown poet (1594)
  • Richard Barnfield appended 20 sonnets to his Cynthia (1595).
  • Emaricdulfe by E. C. Esq. (1595, 40 sonnets)
  • Bartholomew Griffin's Fidessa, more chaste than kind (1596, 62 sonnets)
  • Richard Linche's Diella (1596, 39 sonnets)
  • William Smith's Chloris (196, 51 sonnets)
  • Robert Tofte's Laura (1597, 40 sonnets)
  • William Alexander of Menstrie (Later Earl of Stirling)'s Aurora (1604, contains 125 lyrics of which 105 are sonnets)
  • William Drummond's Poems (1616, 68 sonnets)

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