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Reading the Renaissance
The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics) by R. Rebholz
Buy new: £11.89 / Used from: £7.99
A diplomat and courtier at Henry VIII's court, Wyatt is one of the poets who created the English literary Renaissance. Haunting, passionate, searingly vindictive, possibly the lover of Anne Boleyn.
The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics)The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics) by Edmund Spenser
Buy new: £10.41 / Used from: £3.75
Straddles the medieval and renaissance periods with this magisterial chivalric poem, worth reading for the sheer story-telling, and you can ignore the allegory if you wish.
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (The Old Arcadia) (Oxford World's Classics)The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (The Old Arcadia) (Oxford World's Classics) by Sir Philip Sidney
Buy new: £5.49 / Used from: £4.22
Sidney is the mythic 'Renaissance man', and this is probably his most accessible work. But beneath the playfulness and sheer delight is a serious message too.
Sir Philip Sidney: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)Sir Philip Sidney: The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics) by Philip Sidney
Buy used from: £5.99
Contains Sidney's Defence of Poetry and the witty, tender, infuriating and fascinating sonnet sequence Astrophil & Stella
The Complete English Poems (Penguin Classics)The Complete English Poems (Penguin Classics) by John Donne
Buy new: £7.66 / Used from: £2.04
Erudite and yet playful, witty and erotic, Donne pushes love poetry to its limits.
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford World's Classics)The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford World's Classics) by William Shakespeare
Buy new: £4.94 / Used from: £4.12
Less well-known than the plays, Shakespeare's sonnets respond to Sidney and Donne's versions of erotic love, playing, inverting and contesting.
The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete WorksThe RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works by Shakespeare W
Buy new: £11.98 / Used from: £9.94
Amazing price for the essential Renaissance reader, brought up to date by the always reliable Bate.
The Complete Plays (Penguin Classics)The Complete Plays (Penguin Classics) by Christopher Marlowe
Buy new: £7.69 / Used from: £2.91
The other hugely popular Renaissance playwright...
Renaissance Women Poets: Isabella Whitney, Mary Sidney and Aemilia Lanyer (Penguin Classics)Renaissance Women Poets: Isabella Whitney, Mary Sidney and Aemilia Lanyer (Penguin Classics) by Aemilia Lanyer
Buy new: £11.69 / Used from: £6.26
Poetry from Sidney's sister Mary, and Lanyer, possibly Shakespeare's Dark Lady (or not...)
The Book of the Courtier (Classics)The Book of the Courtier (Classics) by Baldesar Castiglione
Buy new: £6.47 / Used from: £0.45
The book that underpins so much of the courtly love tradition that exists in Renaissance literature.
The Heptameron (Classics)The Heptameron (Classics) by Marguerite De Navarre
Buy new: £8.43 / Used from: £2.62
Written (possibly...) by Francis I's sister Marguerite, this updates Boccaccio as the French court debate erotic love from male and female views.
Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) by Pierre Ronsard
Buy used from: £8.11
A little-read poet but an important one who influences English love poetry