'Well-conceived and well-tuned anthology... informative introduction... this book will become an indispensable source for scholars, theoreticians of literature, university professors, writers, and nonacademic readers for as long as our interest in Renaissance studies continues.' -In-between, Essays andamp; Studies in Literary Criticism 'He [Vickers] illuminates the classical background to his texts with particular clarity... This richly rewarding collection is a worthy successor to the classic anthologies of Gregory Smith and J. E. Spingarn.' -English Studies 'Vickers's splendid, fifty-five page introduction puts his selection in context, tracing its application of the dazzling variety of classical rhetoric. This must be one of the most pithily compressed accounts ever attempted of criticism as applied to rhetoric.' -Alastair Fowler, Times Literary Supplement 'Vickers's Notes are a model of pertinence and economy. They not only adduce a wide variety of ancient sources, but ascribe these discriminatingly, in accordance with modern scholarship.' -Alastair Fowler, Times Literary Supplement 'This excellent anthology can be recommended with very few reservations. Let us hope it will be followed by a second volume continuing the selection into the seventeenth century.' -Alastair Fowler, Times Literary Supplement 'English Renaissance Literary Criticism may well become the standard reference collection... the greatest coup is John Ford's elegy on John Fletcher, discovered by the late Jeremy Maule and printed here for the first time.' -Alastair Fowler, Times Literary SupplementThis is the first comprehensive collection of English Renaissance literary criticism to appear for nearly a century. In his wide-ranging introduction the editor shows that English critics in the period 1520 to 1650 owed most to classical writers on rhetoric and poetics: Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, Plutarch. All selections are annotated, identifying classical and other sources, and giving translations for Greek, Latin, and Italian texts. A section is devoted to Further Reading, and an extensive glossary is provided for archaic and technical words.