title: English Poetry Before Chaucer (Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies LUP)
author: M.J. Swanton
description: <br />"English Poetry Before Chaucer is interesting and thought-provoking. It is a fine guide to re-reading -- not so much a handbook to early English literature as a true 'companion', one who enjoys showing you all his favourite haunts. EL Learned, insightful, sometimes eclectic, Swanton's English Poetry Before Chaucer offers a wealth of specific reading on some important, and often-taught, poems."--<em>English Poetry Before Chaucer, The Medieval Review Online</em> <br />
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  # The Arte of English Poesie
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### George Puttenham
  
  
  This page formatted 2005 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  THE FIRST BOOKE, Of Poets and Poesie.
  
  
    
  Chap. I. What a Poet and Poesie is, and who may be
  
  
  worthily sayd the most excellent Poet of our time.
  
  
    
  Chap. II. That there may be an Art of our English
  
  
  Poesie, as well as there is of the Latine and Greeke.
  
  
    
  Chap. III. How Poets were the first priests, the
  
  
  first prophets, the first Legislators and politicians in the world.
  
  
    
  Chap. IIII. How the Poets were the first
  
  
  Philosophers, the first Astronomers and Historiographers and Oratours
  
  
  and Musiciens of the world.
  
  
    
  Chap. V. How the wilde and sauage people vsed a
  
  
  naturall Poesie in versicte and time as our vulgar is.
  
  
    
  Chap. VI. How the riming Poesie came first to the
  
  
  Grecians and Latines, and had altered and almost split their maner of
  
  
  Poesie.
  
  
    
  Chap. VIII. In what reputation Poesie and