Presented not only in English but also featuring rare Latin verses accompanied by a faithful new translation, this is the definitive volume of poems of a neglected figure in sixteenth-century literature. New texts are offered based on the manuscripts that were circulated in secret among English Catholics after Southwell's death, returning to the poems some of their original purpose of communicating forbidden theologies and doctrines among a criminalized and near-silenced readership of secret groups.
Robert Southwell, SJ, was an English Jesuit priest and poet who lived from 1561–1595, when he was hanged at Tyburn.Peter Davidsonis a professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Aberdeen and the editor of The Clarendon Anthology of Seventeenth Century English Poetry,The Clarendon Poems and Translations of Sir Richard Fanshawe,andPoetry and Revolution.Anne Sweeneyis the author of a published monograph on Southwell,Snow in Arcadia: Redrawing the English Lyric Landscape.