Rosalynde

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Title: Rosalynde
or, Euphues' Golden Legacy
Author: Thomas Lodge
Editor: Edward Chauncey Baldwin
Release Date: November 29, 2005 [EBook #17181]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSALYNDE ***
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ROSALYNDE OR, EUPHUES' GOLDEN LEGACY
BY
THOMAS LODGE
EDITED
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN, Ph.D.
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
STANDARD?ENGLISH?CLASSICS
GINN AND COMPANY
BOSTON * NEW YORK * CHICAGO * LONDON?ATLANTA * DALLAS * COLUMBUS * SAN FRANCISCO
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The Athen?um Press
GINN AND COMPANY * PROPRIETORS * BOSTON * U.S.A.
PREFACE
This edition of Lodge's "Rosalynde" has grown out of a need felt by the editor for an example of Elizabethan prose suitable for use in a general survey course in English, designed for college freshmen. "Rosalynde," of all the books that were considered, seemed on the whole best to fulfill the desired conditions. As a pastoral romance it belongs to a class of books which, if not peculiar to the Elizabethan age, is at least thoroughly representative of it. Moreover, the story is entirely unobjectionable, nothing being found in it that could offend any reader. The "Rosalynde," being one of the shortest of the prose romances, is not open to the objections that might be urged against the more famous, but also more discursive, "Arcadia" of Sidney. Its close relations with Shakespeare's "As You Like It," which is also read in the course, and its added interest as one of the precursors of the modern novel, additionally recommend it. Finally, its coherent plot, its freedom from digressions, and its happy ending, make it seem likely to interest students, in spite of the?conventionality of the pastoral form.
The annotation has been confined to giving the meanings of obsolete or unusual words. There are many mythological allusions that call for explanation; but this, it is thought, any good dictionary of mythology will supply. The list of questions is not of course exhaustive, and is intended to be merely suggestive of the kind of study the college student in an introductory course in English might well be fitted to undertake. The text is that of the Hunterian Club edition of Lodge's "Works." This reprint is of the first edition, that of 1590, except that (since the only known copy of the first edition of "Rosalynde" is imperfect) a few pages (121-127 of this edition) were reprinted from the second edition of 1592. The spelling and punctuation have to some extent been modernized--the latter having been altered only where changes serve to make the author's meaning more obvious.
The editor acknowledges his indebtedness to the scholarly edition of Lodge's "Rosalynde" by W.W. Greg (London and New York, 1907), particularly to the glossarial index, which has supplied the meanings of some words about which the editor was in considerable doubt. Thanks are due, also, to my colleague Mr. Arthur Tietje for his helpful suggestions in preparing the list of questions.
E.C.B.
URBANA, ILLINOIS
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION vii
Birth and Education; Early Work; Later Work and Death; Source of "Rosalynde": "The Tale of Gamelyn"; Form: A?Pastoral Romance; Spanish Influence; Style: Euphuistic; One of the Last Examples of Euphuism; The Charm of the Book; Lodge's Skill as a Story-teller; The Lyrical Interludes; Historical Significance; Shakespeare's Dramatization of "Rosalynde."
BIBLIOGRAPHY xxi
THE PUBLISHED WORKS OF THOMAS LODGE xxii
AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxv
AUTHOR'S DEDICATION xxvii
TEXT 1
QUESTIONS 131
[Transcriber's Note: The Questions section has been omitted from this e-book.]
INTRODUCTION
Birth and Education. Of the life of Thomas Lodge comparatively little is definitely known. Yet, though even the year of his birth is uncertain, we are able from the meager facts that have come down to us to see that his life was typically Elizabethan. Like Sidney and like Raleigh, Lodge lived a varied and active life. He was born in either 1557 or 1558 of a rather prominent middle-class London family, both his father and his mother's father having been lord mayors of the city. He was sent to Merchant Taylors' School and afterwards to Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1577. Of his career at the university we know almost nothing except that among his fellow students were John Lyly, destined to exert a powerful influence upon his style, and George Peele, later to become a dramatist of note, to whom Lodge may to some extent have owed his subsequent interest in the drama.
Early Work. After leaving Oxford, Lodge returned to London and entered the Society of Lincoln's Inn, in other words took up the study of the