ABSTRACT
The Elizabethan writer Thomas Campion (1567–1620) is one of those early modern British poets who produced literary works in both (neo-)Latin and English, like John Milton (1608–74) slightly later. 1 However, Campion’s writings in the two languages enjoyed an uneven reception: it has been remarked that ‘Thomas Campion is pre-eminent as an Elizabethan valued today for his English poetry, and in his own day as a Latin poet’ (Binns, ‘Introduction’ ix). Indeed, Campion’s English poems, particularly his collections of Ayres with their musical accompaniment, are still read, recorded and valued today, so much so that T. S. Eliot declared that ‘Except for Shakespeare, Thomas Campion was the most accomplished master of rhymed lyric of his time’ (37), and The Guardian newspaper printed one of Campion’s poems, ‘My sweetest Lesbia’, as the ‘Poem of the Week’ in March 2010 (Rumens).
