CANTERBURY TALES (1478). Being in England made it
easier for Caxton to acquire texts already written in
English. Although he occasionally published in Latin,
his output was almost entirely in English, and he pub-
lished a wide variety of poetry and prose on historical,
religious, and chivalric subjects. Having easy access to
English texts written and translated by others enabled
Caxton to increase the volume of his business, but he
also remained involved in writing and literary produc-
tion. He continued to translate some works himself,
edited others, and famously wrote his own prologues
and epilogues for many of the works that came through
his press.
William Caxton died in 1491. His legacy is a signifi -
cant one. Caxton’s introduction of the printing press to
England, his pioneering efforts to make English liter-
ary texts available in the new medium of print, his sen-
sitivity to literary fashions, and his own prologues,
epilogues, and translations all make him an important
fi gure in the history of English literature and to the
VERNACULAR tradition. However, in his own lifetime, it
is likely that Caxton saw himself primarily as a mer-
chant who rightly perceived the trade of printed books
in English as a profi table business venture.
See also PYNSON, RICHARD; WORDE, WYNKYN DE.
FURTHER READING
Blake, N. F. William Caxton and English Literary Culture.
London: Hambledone Press, 1991.
Painter, George D. William Caxton, A Biography. New York:
G. Putnam’s Sons, 1977.
Christina M. Carlson
CERTAIN SONNETS (OVERVIEW) SIR
PHILIP SIDNEY (ca. 1581) A self-selected 32-poem
collection, most of which was completed by 1581, Cer-
tain Sonnets comprises 27 original poems and fi ve
translations from Latin, Spanish, and Italian. It is a
miscellany of forms such as sapphics (a form using
four unrhymed lines with the fi rst three in trochaic
pentameter), songs, quantitative verses (meter of Clas-
sical Greek and Latin poetry that measures the length
of time required to pronounce syllables), QUATORZAINs,
and so forth. The collection also includes eight poems
based on contemporary tunes (e.g., an English consort
song, MADRIGALs, villanelles). In particular, the tune
used for Sonnet 23 (“Who hath his fancy pleased”) is
from the thematically syntactical “Wilhelmus van Nas-
souwe,” the Dutch national anthem, from which SIR
PHILIP SIDNEY also borrowed the syllabic structure and
rhyme pattern. Sonnet 3 (“The fi re to see my wrongs
for anger burneth”) and Sonnet 4 (“The nightingale, as
soon as April bringeth”) are both based on the Italian
song “Non credo già che più infelice amante” (I do not
believe there is a more unhappy lover). Sonnet 26 uses
the tune and syllabic structure of the madrigal, “No,
no, no, no, giammai non cangerò” (No, no, no, no,
never will I change). Sonnets 12–14 are translations
from Horace, Catullus, and Seneca, while Sonnets 28
and 29 are translations from Montemayor’s Diana.
Sonnet 16a is actually a SONNET by Sidney’s friend
Edward Dyer (1543–1607).
The fi rst sonnet in this collection presents a series of
internally opposed or oxymoronic statements—for
example, “since, shunning pain, I ease can never fi nd”
(l. 1) or “since heart in chilling fear with ice is warmed”
(l. 7)—and ends in the fi nal COUPLET with a yielding to
the pain and servitude of love (“Thou art my lord, and
I thy vowed slave,” l. 14). The phrasing and movement
of the sonnet is Petrarchan. As an opening poem,
though, it is formulaic. Sonnet 2 draws out the idea of
a capricious and willful Love making an example of his
subject, who attempts to resist his (Love’s) power while
Love “resolved to make me pattern of his might / like
foe, whose wits inclined to deadly spite, / would often
kill, to breed more feeling pain” (ll. 2–4).
Sonnet 3 (“The fi re to see my wrongs for anger bur-
neth”) is a song Amphialus has performed for the
imprisoned Philoclea by pretending to present it for
the benefi t of Anaxius in the new ARCADIA (The Count-
ess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, book 3, chapter 15). The next
poem, Sonnet 4, is also written to the same tune; how-
ever, this sonnet focuses on the classic subject from
OVID’s Metamorphosis of Philomela, metamorphosed
into a nightingale, after her rape by her brother-in-law
Tereus. The poem equates raping and being raped with
“wanting” and “too much having,” alleging that being
raped is simply having too much love and that the pain
of love and desire is sadder than being raped: “But I,
who daily craving / Cannot have to content me, / HaveCERTAIN SONNETS 107