Notes

1] A sequence of fifty sonnets and a concluding ode, first printed from an authorized MS. in 1592. During the previous year, several of the poems had been printed surreptitiously in an appendix to Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. Later, Daniel revised and "augmented" the series several times, removing (so it seems to us) some of the Elizabethan flavour. Representative Poetry follows the text and numbering of the 1592 quarto, but for Sonnet 31 provides two versions, those of 1592 and 1623 (Daniel's last), so that students can examine from a single sample the nature of Daniel's revisions. It is probable that by "Delia," Daniel intended his patroness, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, for not only was the first edition dedicated to her as "the happy and judicial patroness of the Muses, a glory hereditary to your house," but he also refers in the 48th sonnet to Avon, "where Delia hath her seat." The Avon (not that of Stratford!) dows through the Wilton estate near Salisbury, the seat of the Pembroke family.

Other poems by Samuel Daniel