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- # Early criticism.
## Overview
This subsection, titled "Early criticism," discusses the initial reception and critical assessment of Shakespeare's poem *Lucrece*. It covers the poem's popularity compared to *Venus and Adonis*, its impact on Shakespeare's contemporary reputation, and specific critical observations from figures like Francis Meres and Gabriel Harvey. The text spans lines 3490-3508 of its source file.
## Context
This subsection is part of a larger [section titled "III"](arke:01KG6S5HRFGJ1FBM87NDW94Z5Z), which is itself contained within the [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53 collection](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y). It was extracted from the text file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). It follows the subsection [Openser’s seven-line stanza.](arke:01KG6S6KNXXG07T5XHRB1B9XN5) and precedes the subsection [Plagiarisms.](arke:01KG6S6KP02MQPTKHPRVQM065T).
## Contents
The subsection details the critical reception of *Lucrece*, noting that while it was less popular than *Venus and Adonis* in terms of editions, it significantly enhanced Shakespeare's standing among critics. It highlights contrasting views: some, like Francis Meres, saw no distinction between *Lucrece* and *Venus and Adonis*, while others, such as Gabriel Harvey, differentiated them, suggesting *Lucrece* appealed to "the wiser sort." The text also mentions Drummond of Hawthornden's reading of the poem in 1606 and its inclusion in his list of English books in 1611, as well as fragments quoted in an early 17th-century manuscript.
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- Early criticism.
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- Early criticism.
a pedestrian piece of verse in the seven-line stanza, followed Spenser’s poem in 1591, and next year there appeared Daniel’s *Complaint of Rosamond*. The uses to which Shakespeare put Daniel’s preceding experiment have already been noticed. Shakespeare employed the stanza again in the narrative poem, *A Lover’s Complaint*, which was first published in 1609 with the *Sonnets*. That piece was probably written very shortly after *Lucrece*.
Though the popularity of *Lucrece* did not equal that of *Venus and Adonis*, and the volume passed through fewer editions during and after Shakespeare’s lifetime, its success on its appearance was well pronounced, and it greatly added to Shakespeare’s reputation among contemporary critics. Some readers, like Francis Meres in his *Palladis Tamia* (1598), the anonymous author of the *Pilgrimage to Parnassus*, and Richard Barnfield in *Poems in Divers Humours*, 1598¹, failed to detect any distinction between *Lucrece* and its predecessor *Venus and Adonis*. But a few observers like Gabriel Harvey were more discriminating, and pointed out that while the earlier poem delighted ‘the younger sort’, *Lucrece* pleased ‘the wiser sort’². Harvey was indeed inclined to exaggerate the serious aspect of the poem and to rank it with *Hamlet*. Drummond of Hawthornden noted that he read the poem in 1606, and a copy figures in
¹ And Shakespeare thou, whose bony-flowing vaine
(pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine,
Whose *Venus* and whose *Lucrece* (sweete and chaste)
Thy name in fame’s immortall Booke have plact.
² Harvey’s words ran:—‘The younger sort take much delight in Shakespeare’s *Venus and Adonis*. But his *Lucrece* and tragedy of *Hamlet*, Prince of Denmark, have it in them to please the wiser sort.’ Harvey wrote these words about 1604 in a copy of Speght’s *Chancer* of 1598. They were transcribed by George Steevens (cf. Variorum ed., 1821, vol. ii, p. 369). But the volume containing Harvey’s original draft belonged to Bishop Percy, and was burnt in the fire at Northumberland House, London, which destroyed the bishop’s library in 1780.
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LUCRECE
the table ‘of his English books Anno 1611’. Minor indications that the work was familiar to students abound. Fragments of two lines (1086–7) are quoted in the disjointed contemporary scribble which defaces the outside leaf of an early manuscript copy of some of Bacon’s tracts in the Duke of Northumberland’s library at Alnwick; the words were probably written down very early in the seventeenth century.¹
- title
- Early criticism.