‘The History of English Poetry from the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century’, 1781

Thomas Warton (1728–90) was Professor of Poetry at Oxford (1757–67), and Poet Laureate (1785–90). His ‘Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser’ (1754), and his ‘History of English Poetry’ (1774–81) both show, in addition to their general usefulness, a modest appreciation of the ‘romantic’ sensibility. For the extracts from the ‘History’ concerning Marlowe, I have chosen to use the 1824 edition, with its ‘numerous additional notes by the late Mr, Ritson, the late Dr. Ashby, Mr. Douce, Mr. Park, and other eminent antiquaries’, since it gives useful information for the state of Marlowe scholarship and criticism during the period.