ABSTRACT
Lyric was one of the two main activities in Elizabethan poetry, the other being drama. Many of the chief poets wrote both with equal mastery. If the lyric production of the age has on the whole to be of less commanding importance than the drama, it is less only than that. Lacking it, English poetry would lack one of its brightest honours. It is true that the Elizabethan love poets borrowed conventions and imagery from foreign masters, and that there were certain standards of amorous technique or deportment of which they all took some notice. The Elizabethan age was one of intense national vitality, which was reflected in its poetry. In the Elizabethan love poetry the sonnet was the major, the most authoritative form. Whenever the emotion rose to the finer heights of passion, fourteen lines, distributed to one of two or three prescribed patterns, took command of the poet's invention.
