The Poly-Olbion is a topographical poem describing England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. Written by Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...

 (1563–1631) and published in 1612, it was reprinted with a second part in 1622. Drayton had been working on the project since at least 1598.

Content

The Poly-Olbion is divided into thirty songs, written in alexandrine

Alexandrine

An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...

 couplets, consisting in total of almost 15,000 lines of verse. Drayton intended to compose a further part to cover Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, but no part of this work is known to have survived. Each song describes between one and three counties, describing their topography, tradition

Tradition

A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

s and histories

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

. Copies were illustrated with map

Map

A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....

s of each county, drawn by William Hole, whereon places were depicted anthropomorphically.

The first book was accompanied by historical and philological summaries written by John Selden

John Selden

John Selden was an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law...

.

Because of its length and its author's conflicting goals the Poly-Olbion was almost never read as a whole, but is an important source for the period nevertheless. Drayton strained to combine correct scientific information about Britain (mostly contained in Selden's commentary) with his desire to provide as many memorial anchors to the elusive ancient Britons, Druids, Bards, and King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

as possible.

External links

• Poly-Olbion in The Complete Works of Michael Drayton, vol. 3 (London, 1876)