“Shake-speare’s” Treatise on Verse

Translation and Commentary by David J. Hanson

Preface to “Shake-speare’s” Treatise on Verse by David J. Hanson

“This little book, together with a small fragment from a larger essay on "Gascoigne", now go in search of 100,000 readers, those of the 20th century who use the King's English to practice the art of verse. I call it a little book although actually it provided only one part of an old book titled The Steel Glass, which was first published in London at a time when the Julian calendar was being revised throughout Europe. The year was 1575/76.

Certain Instructions Regarding the Making of Verses and Rhymes is reprinted here with a brief commentary which is the section extracted from an ambitious essay titled Quest for the Historical “Shake-Speare”. The commentary follows a transcription which takes the verse treatise out of a 16th century style of print and brings it into our own era.

Strange to say, this handbook for aspiring poets is England's only authoritative prosody. Written by "Gascoigne" when the poet was young, it contains the essential rules for all versification in the English language. For four centuries now it has lain neglected and unread. Since late in the last century, when universal literacy descended on the world, it has been overlooked for a superficial reason now remedied by the transcription. Twentieth Century scholars, when visiting the great libraries of our civilization, such as the Francis Bacon and the Huntington in California, and the Bodleian at Oxford, will not examine the content of a text unless it is in modern print. Thus the astonishing and sublime poems of George "Gascoigne" are unknown to the modern world. I would venture that a person with an inquiring mind would have to visit hundreds of college campuses before he could find a single member of an English Department who could say anything significant of George "Gascoigne" or who was even aware of his voluminous writings (3 volumes in William Hazlitt's 19th Century edition). A few years ago I learned of a young professor at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania who was of the opinion that "Gascoigne's" poem, Woodsmanship, was one of the finest lyrics done in the Elizabethan era. I could not agree with him more; but then, who are we two among so many?

The transcription printed here introduces "Gascoigne" to the 20th Century. If, as is alleged, "Gascoigne" is an early nom de plume for the warrior poet, Edward de Vere, (and if it can be demonstrated that Lord Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford was "Shake-speare"), then the importance of this little treatise cannot be gainsaid. To those who are of the belief that the majestic plays of "Shake-speare" were written by an illiterate country lad, then this technical treatise on verse is where he learned his skill if ever he was in need of such instruction.”