Carcanet Press - The Collected Poems of S. Robert Southwell

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As I in hoary Winters night stoode shyveringe in the snowe
Surpris'd I was with sodayne heat, which made my hart to glowe
And lifting upp a fearefull eye to vewe what fire was nere
A pretty babe all burninge bright did in the ayre appeare...

from Southwell's 'Burning Babe'

INCLUDES AN INTRODUCTION AND AFTERWORD BY ANN SWEENEY AND AN ESSAY BY PETER DAVIDSON

One of our earliest English critics, Ben Jonson, famously wished that he had written Southwell's 'Burning Babe', the most famous poem of the body of spiritual verse written by the Elizabethan priest, poet and martyr S. Robert Southwell SJ (1561-95). This book is a complete, authentic edition of Southwell's poems, in English and Latin, offering new texts based on the very manuscripts which were circulated in secret among English Catholics in the years following the poet's death. By re-examining these contemporary manuscripts, this edition allows Southwell's poems to regain some of their original purpose of communicating forbidden theologies and doctrines amongst a criminalised and near-silenced readership of secret groups. These are the poems of those Catholics who did not or could not flee the country as the Elizabethan State bore down upon their faith in the last two decades of the sixteenth century.

Audacious and beautiful in themselves, Southwell's poems were also immensely influential in the the development of early modern English literature; his new visions and visualisations bear their fruit a generation later in the works of Donne and Herbert. Southwell's rare Latin verses, available here for the first time, accompanied by a new translation, demonstrate the significant creative debt owed to him by the Augustans, even by Milton.

Saint Robert Southwell

Saint Robert Southwell was born in 1561 at Horsham St Faith's in Norfolk, the son of a gentleman who had conformed to the protestant church. He was reconciled to Catholicism and entered the Society of Jesus at Rome when he was seventeen. He studied in Douai, Louvain and Rome. He returned ... read more

Peter Davidson

Peter Davidson was born in Scotland in 1957. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. Peter has edited the Clarendon Poems and Translations of Sir Richard Fanshawe (Vol I, 1998; II, 1999); the Clarendon anthology of seventeenth-century English poetry, Poetry and Revolution (1998), and (with Jane ... read more

Ann Sweeney

Anne Sweeney completed her doctorate on S. Robert Southwell at the University of Lancaster. Her monograph on him, Snow in Arcadia: Redrawing the English Lyric Landscape was published by Manchester University Press in 2006. ... read more

Praise for Peter Davidson 'This impressive and unusual collection sets the tone straight away: "The falcon flown, far in the starving air / So many lost, this long, half-secret war." Davidson's verse is meticulous, metrical, alliterative; driven as much by musical half-rhyme as full rhymes; historically specific; highly emotional but broadly impersonal (these are the opposite of anecdotal poems); and intensely romantic.'
Victoria Moul, The Friday Poem
'He shows us in Arctic Elegies a land and state of mind both lyrically described and thrillingly delighted in - a land and state of mind both eminently deserving of celebration, and capable of shining suddenly with beauty and transformative warmth.'
Derek Turner, Brazen Head
'...these poems adopt and create song forms, giving an eerie and unsettling tone that combines the archaic and the modern in striking ways... Davidson's skill with rhyme and an almost-liturgical syntax give a tense and moving atmosphere.'

Sean Hewitt, The Irish Times
'Davidson's work is as ravishing as it is mysterious, and although they are elegies these poems are deeply joyful occasions.'
David Wheatley, The Guardian
'This is a "concept album" of a collection, in that all the poems sing to each other. It has a pleasingly archaic feel... There is a long-suffering melancholy and a sense that even the frost might melt.'
Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
'Peter Davidson's profoundly civilised and lyrical book is [...] shot through with exquisite poignancies. These have as much to do with the nature of the place - the nature of extreme northerliness - as with the author's finely trained eye. [...] he knows how to see into things, and not only the simply visible, but also the rituals, the inner structures, and music - Lieder and ballad at the piano - of a sequestered, professorial life in rural Aberdeenshire. [...] The stuff and pace of poetry underwrites Prof Davidson's nights and days. He has written a most remarkable book in the same class of accomplishment as the work of Robert Macfarlane, who introduces it.'
Andrew McNeillie, Country Life 'This is a poet's book, his mind wide open to the cultures of the world, especially of the north, specifically Aberdeenshire. The language is luscious, musical and precise, rich with quotation and the cultures of, especially, northern Europe, from minerology and industry to poetry, painting, music [...] The book glows with moments of light, on a city, a river, in a room.'
Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales 'Peter Davidson has written a remarkable and unusual book - I have started the book but want to make it last the summer. It is a sustained prose poem, very moving in its effect... I am savouring it, reading it slowly, hoping to prolong the pleasure of these exquisite essays through the summer. It is, I think, one of the most beautiful books to be written in Scotland for many decades.'
Alexander McCall Smith

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The Collected Poems of S. Robert Southwell Saint Robert Southwell Edited by Peter Davidson and Ann Sweeney 10% off Categories: 16th Century, Christianity Imprint: Fyfield Books Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (180 pages) (Pub. Mar 2007) 9781857548983 £12.95 £11.65 Description Excerpt Author Reviews As I in hoary Winters night stoode shyveringe in the snowe Surpris'd I was with sodayne heat, which made my hart to glowe And lifting upp a fearefull eye to vewe what fire was nere A pretty babe all burninge bright did in the ayre appeare... from Southwell's 'Burning Babe' INCLUDES AN INTRODUCTION AND AFTERWORD BY ANN SWEENEY AND AN ESSAY BY PETER DAVIDSON One of our earliest English critics, Ben Jonson, famously wished that he had written Southwell's 'Burning Babe', the most famous poem of the body of spiritual verse written by the Elizabethan priest, poet and martyr S. Robert Southwell SJ (1561-95). This book is a complete, authentic edition of Southwell's poems, in English and Latin, offering new texts based on the very manuscripts which were circulated in secret among English Catholics in the years following the poet's death. By re-examining these contemporary manuscripts, this edition allows Southwell's poems to regain some of their original purpose of communicating forbidden theologies and doctrines amongst a criminalised and near-silenced readership of secret groups. These are the poems of those Catholics who did not or could not flee the country as the Elizabethan State bore down upon their faith in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. Audacious and beautiful in themselves, Southwell's poems were also immensely influential in the the development of early modern English literature; his new visions and visualisations bear their fruit a generation later in the works of Donne and Herbert. Southwell's rare Latin verses, available here for the first time, accompanied by a new translation, demonstrate the significant creative debt owed to him by the Augustans, even by Milton. Saint Robert Southwell Saint Robert Southwell was born in 1561 at Horsham St Faith's in Norfolk, the son of a gentleman who had conformed to the protestant church. He was reconciled to Catholicism and entered the Society of Jesus at Rome when he was seventeen. He studied in Douai, Louvain and Rome. He returned ... read more Peter Davidson Peter Davidson was born in Scotland in 1957. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. Peter has edited the Clarendon Poems and Translations of Sir Richard Fanshawe (Vol I, 1998; II, 1999); the Clarendon anthology of seventeenth-century English poetry, Poetry and Revolution (1998), and (with Jane ... read more Ann Sweeney Anne Sweeney completed her doctorate on S. Robert Southwell at the University of Lancaster. Her monograph on him, Snow in Arcadia: Redrawing the English Lyric Landscape was published by Manchester University Press in 2006. ... read more Praise for Peter Davidson 'This impressive and unusual collection sets the tone straight away: "The falcon flown, far in the starving air / So many lost, this long, half-secret war." Davidson's verse is meticulous, metrical, alliterative; driven as much by musical half-rhyme as full rhymes; historically specific; highly emotional but broadly impersonal (these are the opposite of anecdotal poems); and intensely romantic.' Victoria Moul, The Friday Poem 'He shows us in Arctic Elegies a land and state of mind both lyrically described and thrillingly delighted in - a land and state of mind both eminently deserving of celebration, and capable of shining suddenly with beauty and transformative warmth.' Derek Turner, Brazen Head '...these poems adopt and create song forms, giving an eerie and unsettling tone that combines the archaic and the modern in striking ways... Davidson's skill with rhyme and an almost-liturgical syntax give a tense and moving atmosphere.' Sean Hewitt, The Irish Times 'Davidson's work is as ravishing as it is mysterious, and although they are elegies these poems are deeply joyful occasions.' David Wheatley, The Guardian 'This is a "concept album" of a collection, in that all the poems sing to each other. It has a pleasingly archaic feel... There is a long-suffering melancholy and a sense that even the frost might melt.' Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman 'Peter Davidson's profoundly civilised and lyrical book is [...] shot through with exquisite poignancies. These have as much to do with the nature of the place - the nature of extreme northerliness - as with the author's finely trained eye. [...] he knows how to see into things, and not only the simply visible, but also the rituals, the inner structures, and music - Lieder and ballad at the piano - of a sequestered, professorial life in rural Aberdeenshire. [...] The stuff and pace of poetry underwrites Prof Davidson's nights and days. He has written a most remarkable book in the same class of accomplishment as the work of Robert Macfarlane, who introduces it.' Andrew McNeillie, Country Life 'This is a poet's book, his mind wide open to the cultures of the world, especially of the north, specifically Aberdeenshire. The language is luscious, musical and precise, rich with quotation and the cultures of, especially, northern Europe, from minerology and industry to poetry, painting, music [...] The book glows with moments of light, on a city, a river, in a room.' Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales 'Peter Davidson has written a remarkable and unusual book - I have started the book but want to make it last the summer. It is a sustained prose poem, very moving in its effect... I am savouring it, reading it slowly, hoping to prolong the pleasure of these exquisite essays through the summer. It is, I think, one of the most beautiful books to be written in Scotland for many decades.' Alexander McCall Smith	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: John Gallas read more Emotional Support Horse: Claudine Toutoungi read more
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The Collected Poems of S. Robert Southwell

Saint Robert Southwell

Edited by Peter Davidson and Ann Sweeney