Richard Barnfield

Richard Barnfield
Born	Norbury, Staffordshire
Baptised	29 June 1574
Died	1620 (aged 45–46)
Nationality	English
Occupation	poet

Richard Barnfield(baptized 29 June 1574 – 1620) was anEnglishpoet.His relationship withWilliam Shakespearehas long made him interesting to scholars. It has been suggested that he was the "rival poet"mentioned in Shakespeare's sonnets.

Early life

Barnfield was born at the home of his maternal grandparents inNorbury, Staffordshire,where he was baptized on 29 June 1574. He was the son of Richard Barnfield, gentleman, and Mary Skrymsher (1552–1581).

He was brought up inShropshireat The Manor House inEdgmond,his upbringing supervised by his aunt Elizabeth Skrymsher after his mother died when Barnfield was six years old.

In November 1589, Barnfield matriculated atBrasenose College, Oxford,and took his degree in February 1592. He performed the exercise for his master's gown, but seems to have left the university abruptly, without proceeding to the M.A. It is conjectured that he came up toLondonin 1593, and became acquainted withWatson,Drayton,and perhaps withEdmund Spenser.The death of SirPhilip Sidneyhad occurred while Barnfield was still a school-boy, but it seems to have strongly affected his imagination and to have inspired some of his earliest verses.

Publications

In November 1594, in his twenty-first year, Barnfield published anonymously his first work,The Affectionate Shepherd,dedicated with familiar devotion toPenelope Rich, Lady Rich.This was a sort of florid romance, in two books of six-line stanzas, in the manner ofLodgeand Shakespeare, dealing at large with the complaint ofDaphnisfor the love ofGanymede.As the author expressly admitted later, it was an expansion or paraphrase ofVirgil'ssecondeclogueFormosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin.

Although the poem was successful, it did not pass without censure from the moral point of view because of its openly homosexual content. Two months later, in January 1595, Barnfield published his second volume,Cynthia, with certain Sonnets, and the legend of Cassandra,and this time signed the preface, which was dedicated, in terms which imply close personal relations, toWilliam Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby.In the preface Barnfield distances himself from the homoeroticism of his previous work, writing that some readers "did interpret The Affectionate Shepherd otherwise than in truth I meant, touching the subject thereof, to wit, the love of a shepherd to a boy". He excuses himself by saying he was imitating Virgil. The new collection, however, also contained poems which were "explicitly and unashamedly homoerotic, full of physical desire", in the words of criticsStanley Wellsand Paul Edmondson.The book exemplifies the earliest study both of Spenser and Shakespeare.Cynthiaitself, apanegyriconQueen Elizabeth,is written in theSpenserian stanza,of which it is probably the earliest example extant outsideThe Faerie Queene.

In 1598, Barnfield published his third volume,The Encomion of Lady Pecunia,a poem in praise of money, followed by a sort of continuation, in the same six-line stanza, calledThe Complaint of Poetry for the Death of Liberality.In this volume there is already a decline in poetic quality. But an appendix ofPoems in diverse Humoursto this volume of 1598 presents some very interesting features. Here appears what seems to be the absolutely earliest praise of Shakespeare in a piece entitledA Remembrance of some English Poets,in which the still unrecognized author ofVenus and Adonisis celebrated by the side of Spenser,Danieland Drayton. Here also are the sonnet,If Music and sweet Poetrie agree,and the ode beginningAs it fell upon a day,which were once attributed to Shakespeare himself.

In 1599,The Passionate Pilgrimwas published, with the words "By W. Shakespeare" on the title-page. It was long supposed that this attribution was correct, but Barnfield claimed one of the two pieces just mentioned, not only in 1598, but again in 1605. It is certain that both are his, and possibly other things inThe Passionate Pilgrimalso; Shakespeare's share in the twenty poems of that miscellany being doubtless confined to the five short pieces which have been definitely identified as his.

He was for a long time neglected, but a less homophobic age has been kinder to his reputation.The sonnet sequence, in particular, can be read as one of the more obviously homoerotic sequences of the period. His work once passed for that of Shakespeare, albeit for only one ode. TheAffectionate Shepheardand theSonnetsappeared as limited-edition artist's books in 1998 and 2001, illustrated byClive Hicks-Jenkinsand produced by the Old Stile Press.

Barnfield'sLady PecuniaandThe Complaint of Poetrywere used as sample texts by the early 17th-century phoneticianRobert Robinsonfor his invented phonetic script.

Later life

In 1605, hisLady Pecuniawas reprinted, and this was his last appearance as a man of letters. Some sources have claimed that Barnfield married and withdrew to his estate ofDorlestone(a locality in Staffordshire now known as Darlaston), where he thenceforth resided as a country gentleman. This is supported by records of a will for a Richard Barnfield, resident at Darlaston. He was buried in the parish church of St Michaels,Stone,on 6 March 1627. However, it now appears that the Barnfield in question was in fact the poet's father, the poet having died in 1620 in Shropshire.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Gosse, Edmund William (1911). "Barnfield, Richard".InChisholm, Hugh(ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 414–415.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Cousin, John William(1910). "Barnfield, Richard".A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.London: J. M. Dent & Sons – viaWikisource.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Gosse, Edmund(1885). "Barnfield, Richard".InStephen, Leslie(ed.).Dictionary of National Biography.Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Massai, Sonia (2004). "Barnfield, Richard (bap. 1574, d. 1620)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1487.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)

Further reading

• Barnfield, Richard(1990). Klawitter, George (ed.).The Complete Poems.Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press.ISBN978-0-945636-15-1.OCLC330237714.
• Borris, Kenneth; Klawitter, George, eds. (2001).The Affectionate Shepherd: Celebrating Richard Barnfield.Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press.ISBN9780585438658.OCLC1297707709.
• Bredbeck, Gregory W. (1992). "Tradition and the Individual Sodomite: Barnfield, Shakespeare, and Subjective Desire". InSummers, Claude J.(ed.).Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment England: Literary Representations in Historical Context.New York: Harrington Park Press. pp. 41–68.ISBN978-1-56023-019-9.OCLC864743259.
• Morris, Harry (1959). "Richard Barnfield," Amyntas, "and the Sidney Circle".PMLA.74(4): 318–324.doi:10.2307/460441.ISSN0030-8129.JSTOR460441.
• Morris, Harry (1963).Richard Barnfield, Colin's Child.Tampa: Florida State University.OCLC318445529.
• Yearling, Rebecca (2013). "Homoerotic Desire and Renaissance Lyric Verse".SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900.53(1): 53–71.ISSN0039-3657.JSTOR41818883.

External links

• Works by Richard BarnfieldatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Richard BarnfieldatInternet Archive
• Works by Richard BarnfieldatLibriVox(public domain audiobooks)
• Songs with lyrics by Richard Barnfield onIMSLP.