Tottle’s Miscellany by Richard Tottle

English poetry burst into sudden glory in the late 1570s. A decisive shift in taste and culture was visible from then.  It was a period of slow increasing confidence in the literary sky along with the progress in the educational arena and the growth of substantial English leadership with a cultivated taste. The Discovery of the printing press accelerated its development. The stationers’ Company which controlled the publication of books was incorporated in 1557. And Richard Tottle’s Miscellany in 1557 was a revolutionary step in creating a direct bridge between audience and poet for the first time in its true sense.  Before that poetic creation and criticisms were circulated only among the courtly people. Tottle’s Miscellany paved the way for later poets to celebrate their poetic personalities.

Tottle’s Miscellany (anthology of English Poetry)… complied by Richard Tottle … Published in 1557 in London.

There are 271 Poems – under the title Songs & Sonnets. – Among them, 54 were sonnets…15 by Surrey, 27 by Wyatt and some by other sonneteers. Including other poems, Wyatt contributed around 90 poems and Surrey 40.

Other less famous contributors were:

Thomas Churchyard, Lord Vaux, Nicholas Grimald

This model exerted a strong influence on numerous English Renaissance Poets: Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare.

It moulded and shaped the English sonnet style according to its national and linguistic demand, quite different from that of Petrarch.

Lyric poetry achieved great acumen and solidarity.

 “This collection is regarded as the prologue to the great burst of lyrical productivity that came in the reign of Elizabeth.” Harrie Blamires