Barnabe Googe
Encyclopedia
Barnabe Googe or Gooche (also spelled Barnaby Googe) was a poet
and translator, one of the earliest English pastoral poets.
or Kent
, the son of Robert Googe (or Goche), recorder of Lincoln.
He studied at the strongly Reformist Christ's College, Cambridge
, and was long thought to have also studied at New College, Oxford
, although this appears uncertain. Afterwards, he moved to Staple Inn
, where his cousin, William Lovelace, held the position of Reader. Around this time, he started to write poetry, and found himself in an exciting creative coterie
with other young writers, such as Jasper Heywood
and George Turberville
. previous authorities claim that he became a gentleman pensioner to Queen Elizabeth
, in effect, a member of her bodyguard, but this has been disproved. Nonetheless, Googe did have close associations with the court, since he was related to William Cecil
. Googe exploited this important connection in the years that followed, and Cecil extended patronage towards his young protegé. It may have been due to Cecil's encouragement that Googe accompanied the Elizabethan humanist scholar Sir Thomas Challoner on a diplomatic embassy to Spain in 1562.
In his absence, Googe's juvenile poems were sent to the printer by a friend, Laurence Blundeston. On his return, Googe learned of Blundeston's actions and reluctantly gave his consent to their publication when he discovered that the printer had already paid for the paper for the print run and the composition was underway. The book appeared in 1563 as Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonettes. Before the appearance of his book, no writer in England had ever published his own poetry under his own name; in this, Googe was an accidental pioneer.
in Kent. When Googe found his suit discouraged by Thomas Darrell, he appealed to his powerful contacts and the marriage duly took place in 1564 or 1565; Googe took his wife to live in Lamberhurst at the manor house of Chingley.
In 1569 he dedicated a long allegorical poem with a moralistic marine topic, The Shippe of Safegarde, to his sisters-in-law. By this time, Googe had served Cecil on a military expedition to Ireland, where he had contracted dysentry and nearly died. In 1571 he was returned as MP for Aldborough, north Yorkshire
. Further service in Ireland awaited him in 1582 when Googe was appointed to the position of provost-marshal of the court of Connaught, and some twenty letters of his in this capacity are preserved in the Public Records Office. It is often said, on scant evidence, that Googe knew other poets in Irish service, notably Edmund Spenser
. Googe repeatedly petitioned the political masters in London to be allowed to come home.
He finally succeeded in selling his office in the late 1580s, and he retired to his family lands in Alvingham
in Lincolnshire
. He died there on 7 February 1594 and was buried at North Cockerington
.
, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Campion
...) was decorative, metaphorical and often exaggerated; it also involved a more fluid mastery of iambic English poetry than the alliterative Native Style: Googe's tonic accents are heavy, the unaccents light; the result is sometimes deliberately blunt and plodding. The poems of George Turberville
, Thomas More
, George Gascoyne and Walter Ralegh are examples of a similar style.
Plain Style dealt with serious subjects in a serious way: its goal was not ornamental beauty, but truth. Googe's poem Of Money ("Give money me, take friendship whoso list / For friends are gone come once adversity...") is a well-known example of the tradition.
Googe was an ardent Protestant, and his poetry is coloured by his religious and political views. In the third "Eglog," for instance, he laments the decay of the old nobility and the rise of a new aristocracy of wealth, and he gives an indignant account of the sufferings of his co-religionists under Mary of England. The other eclogues deal with the sorrows of earthly love, leading up to a dialogue between Corydon and Cornix, in which the heavenly love is extolled. The volume includes epitaphs on Nicholas Grimald
, John Bale
and on Thomas Phaer, whose translation of Virgil
Googe esteemed.
The English pastoral poem "Phyllida was a fayer maid" (from Tottel's Miscellany
of 1558) has been doubtfully ascribed to Googe, despite showing little stylistic rapport with his acknowldged works. But Googe's important contribution to pastoral poetry in English rests with his cycle of eclogues that synthesise trends from classical pastoral, the work of Mantuan, and the pastoral elements of Spanish romance, and he was the first English writer to reflect the influence of the Diana Enamorada of Montemayor
.
His other works include: a translation from Marcellus Palingenius (said to be an anagram for Pier Angelo Manzolli) of a satirical Latin poem, Zodiacus vitae (Venice, 1531?), in twelve books, under the title of The Zodyake of Life (1560); The Popish Kingdome, or reign of Antichrist (1570), translated from Thomas Kirchmeyer or Naogeorgus; The Spiritual Husbandrie from the same author, printed with the last Foure Bookes of Husbandrie (1577), collected by Conradus Heresbachius; The Overthrow of the Gout (1577), a translation from Christopher Ballista (Christophe Arbaleste), and The Proverbes of Lopes de Mendoza (1579). The Zodyake of Life was a significant translation, being adopted as a textbook for English grammar schools. As such, its ideas colour many of the works of English writers of the latter part of the sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth centuries. Part of the book's appeal, in addition to its poetical astronomy, was its notoriety as a Reformist text: Palingenius was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books by the Inquisition and consequently enjoyed popularity in Protestant regions across Europe.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and translator, one of the earliest English pastoral poets.
Early life
Barnabe Googe was born on 11 June 1540 (St Barnabas Day), in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
or Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, the son of Robert Googe (or Goche), recorder of Lincoln.
He studied at the strongly Reformist Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
, and was long thought to have also studied at New College, Oxford
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
, although this appears uncertain. Afterwards, he moved to Staple Inn
Staple Inn
Staple Inn is a building on the south side of High Holborn in London, England. Located near Chancery Lane tube station, it is used as the London office of the Institute of Actuaries and is the last surviving Inn of Chancery and is a listed building....
, where his cousin, William Lovelace, held the position of Reader. Around this time, he started to write poetry, and found himself in an exciting creative coterie
Coterie
Coterie may refer to*Clique*The Coterie, a British society* Dōjinshi* A family group of black-tailed and Mexican prairie dogs...
with other young writers, such as Jasper Heywood
Jasper Heywood
Jasper Heywood, SJ , son of John Heywood, translated into English three plays of Seneca, the Troas , the Thyestes and Hercules Furens ....
and George Turberville
George Turberville
George Turberville, or Turbervile was an English poet, second son of Henry Turberville of Winterborne Whitechurch, Dorset, and nephew of James Turberville, Bishop of Exeter...
. previous authorities claim that he became a gentleman pensioner to Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
, in effect, a member of her bodyguard, but this has been disproved. Nonetheless, Googe did have close associations with the court, since he was related to William Cecil
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley , KG was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer from 1572...
. Googe exploited this important connection in the years that followed, and Cecil extended patronage towards his young protegé. It may have been due to Cecil's encouragement that Googe accompanied the Elizabethan humanist scholar Sir Thomas Challoner on a diplomatic embassy to Spain in 1562.
In his absence, Googe's juvenile poems were sent to the printer by a friend, Laurence Blundeston. On his return, Googe learned of Blundeston's actions and reluctantly gave his consent to their publication when he discovered that the printer had already paid for the paper for the print run and the composition was underway. The book appeared in 1563 as Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonettes. Before the appearance of his book, no writer in England had ever published his own poetry under his own name; in this, Googe was an accidental pioneer.
Marriage and later life
Correspondence survives on the subject of Googe's marriage with Mary Darrell, whose father, Thomas Darrell, refused Googe's suit on the ground that she was bound by a previous contract. More to the point, recent research has shown that Thomas Darrell was a recusant who harboured Jesuit priests in his manor house of Scotney, near LamberhurstLamberhurst
Lamberhurst is a village and civil parish in Kent although the latter parish was at first in both Kent and East Sussex. The line of the county border was adjusted following the Local Government Act 1894, which required that parish boundaries be aligned with counties...
in Kent. When Googe found his suit discouraged by Thomas Darrell, he appealed to his powerful contacts and the marriage duly took place in 1564 or 1565; Googe took his wife to live in Lamberhurst at the manor house of Chingley.
In 1569 he dedicated a long allegorical poem with a moralistic marine topic, The Shippe of Safegarde, to his sisters-in-law. By this time, Googe had served Cecil on a military expedition to Ireland, where he had contracted dysentry and nearly died. In 1571 he was returned as MP for Aldborough, north Yorkshire
Aldborough (UK Parliament constituency)
Aldborough was a parliamentary borough located in the West Riding of Yorkshire, abolished in the Great Reform Act of 1832. Aldborough returned two Members of Parliament from 1558 until 1832....
. Further service in Ireland awaited him in 1582 when Googe was appointed to the position of provost-marshal of the court of Connaught, and some twenty letters of his in this capacity are preserved in the Public Records Office. It is often said, on scant evidence, that Googe knew other poets in Irish service, notably Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
. Googe repeatedly petitioned the political masters in London to be allowed to come home.
He finally succeeded in selling his office in the late 1580s, and he retired to his family lands in Alvingham
Alvingham
Alvingham is a village that lies on a small back road leading east out of Louth, Lincolnshire, England.-Geography:In the west of the parish, it borders Keddington. The parish boundary meets Brackenborough with Little Grimsby, east of Brackenborough Wood. Passing northwards, it meets Yarburgh, and...
in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
. He died there on 7 February 1594 and was buried at North Cockerington
North Cockerington
North Cockerington is a small village found approximately 4 miles to the east of Louth, in the English county of Lincolnshire. The village is home to the North Cockerington Church of England Primary School but has no shops or public houses....
.
Poetry
Googe's poems are written in the Plain or Native Style, which preceded and subsequently competed with the Petrarchan style. Petrarchan love poetry (much of the work of Henry Howard, Earl of SurreyHenry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Henry Howard, KG, , known as The Earl of Surrey although he never was a peer, was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry.-Life:...
, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion was an English composer, poet and physician. He wrote over a hundred lute songs; masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music.-Life:...
...) was decorative, metaphorical and often exaggerated; it also involved a more fluid mastery of iambic English poetry than the alliterative Native Style: Googe's tonic accents are heavy, the unaccents light; the result is sometimes deliberately blunt and plodding. The poems of George Turberville
George Turberville
George Turberville, or Turbervile was an English poet, second son of Henry Turberville of Winterborne Whitechurch, Dorset, and nephew of James Turberville, Bishop of Exeter...
, Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
, George Gascoyne and Walter Ralegh are examples of a similar style.
Plain Style dealt with serious subjects in a serious way: its goal was not ornamental beauty, but truth. Googe's poem Of Money ("Give money me, take friendship whoso list / For friends are gone come once adversity...") is a well-known example of the tradition.
Googe was an ardent Protestant, and his poetry is coloured by his religious and political views. In the third "Eglog," for instance, he laments the decay of the old nobility and the rise of a new aristocracy of wealth, and he gives an indignant account of the sufferings of his co-religionists under Mary of England. The other eclogues deal with the sorrows of earthly love, leading up to a dialogue between Corydon and Cornix, in which the heavenly love is extolled. The volume includes epitaphs on Nicholas Grimald
Nicholas Grimald
Nicholas Grimald , English poet, was born in Huntingdonshire, the son probably of Giovanni Baptista Grimaldi, who had been a clerk in the service of Empson and Dudley in the reign of Henry VII....
, John Bale
John Bale
John Bale was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory. He wrote the oldest known historical verse drama in English , and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of British authors down to his own time, just as the monastic libraries were being...
and on Thomas Phaer, whose translation of Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
Googe esteemed.
The English pastoral poem "Phyllida was a fayer maid" (from Tottel's Miscellany
Tottel's Miscellany
Songes and Sonettes, usually called Tottel's Miscellany, was the first printed anthology of English poetry. It was published by Richard Tottel in 1557, and ran to many editions in the sixteenth century.-Richard Tottel:...
of 1558) has been doubtfully ascribed to Googe, despite showing little stylistic rapport with his acknowldged works. But Googe's important contribution to pastoral poetry in English rests with his cycle of eclogues that synthesise trends from classical pastoral, the work of Mantuan, and the pastoral elements of Spanish romance, and he was the first English writer to reflect the influence of the Diana Enamorada of Montemayor
Montemayor
Montemayor is a city located in the province of Córdoba, Spain. According to the 2006 census , the city has a population of 3936 inhabitants.-External links:* - Sistema de Información Multiterritorial de Andalucía...
.
His other works include: a translation from Marcellus Palingenius (said to be an anagram for Pier Angelo Manzolli) of a satirical Latin poem, Zodiacus vitae (Venice, 1531?), in twelve books, under the title of The Zodyake of Life (1560); The Popish Kingdome, or reign of Antichrist (1570), translated from Thomas Kirchmeyer or Naogeorgus; The Spiritual Husbandrie from the same author, printed with the last Foure Bookes of Husbandrie (1577), collected by Conradus Heresbachius; The Overthrow of the Gout (1577), a translation from Christopher Ballista (Christophe Arbaleste), and The Proverbes of Lopes de Mendoza (1579). The Zodyake of Life was a significant translation, being adopted as a textbook for English grammar schools. As such, its ideas colour many of the works of English writers of the latter part of the sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth centuries. Part of the book's appeal, in addition to its poetical astronomy, was its notoriety as a Reformist text: Palingenius was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books by the Inquisition and consequently enjoyed popularity in Protestant regions across Europe.