Shakespeare anthologized: England's Parnassus

Englands Parnassus is one of two printed commonplace books, or collections of extracts organized by topic, compiled by Robert Allott, and was printed shortly after John Bodenham’s Bel-vedére. In Englands Parnassus, Allott draws together excerpts from “Modern” sixteenth-century English poetry, whereas he focused on contemporary prose works in his earlier collection, Wits Theater of the Little World (1599). As Ann Moss, Arthur F. Marotti, and others have shown, including living authors like Shakespeare in such collections marks a major shift in the status of English literature by suggesting that it was worthy of preservation and study. Little is known about Allott himself; although scholars have identified two Robert Allotts who may have been responsible for these books as well as a few commendatory verses, they do not agree as to whether these works were created by the Robert Allott of Lincolnshire or of Yorkshire.

Like other plays from the period, Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be read both as stories and as sources for sententiae, passages that become stand-alone proverbs when removed from the play. In 1600, when Englands Parnassus was printed, fourteen of Shakespeare’s plays had already been printed, and Allott includes multiple excerpts from Romeo and Juliet (13 excerpts), Richard II (7), Richard III (5), Love’s Labor’s Lost (3), and Henry IV Part 1 (2). The other nine plays are not represented in Englands Parnassus at all.

Nevertheless, references to Shakespeare’s narrative poems far outstrip those to his plays. Park Honan notes that Allott “selected thirty-nine passages from Lucrece,” meaning that he “took fewer [passages] from all the author’s plays then in print” than he did from Lucrece alone (Honan, 179). Venus and Adonis is also well-represented with twenty-six selections. 

Excerpts attributed to  Shakespeare (sometimes incorrectly) appear under forty-seven topic headings, with the largest number, twelve, grouped under the heading “Loue,” with an additional “Loue” entry by Shakespeare added near the end of the book. Allott also includes several Shakespeare quotations for “Griefe” (5), “Feare” (4), and “Words” (3), and “Delaie,” “Kings,” “Lechery,” “Vertue, “Women,” “Mane” (morning), and “Discriptions of Beautie & personage” each garner two.

Numerous copies of Englands Parnassus survive; there are seven copies just at the Folger Shakespeare Library. This copy, Folger copy 1, was purchased by Mr. Folger, and is signed “Will[ia]m Oldys 1730.” Subsequent owners include the writer Lewis Theobald and the antiquary James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps.

Two annotators, possibly among the book’s owners, have supplemented the printed paratexts. One added a “List of the Poets” on slightly smaller leaves of laid paper inserted between the title page and the first topic heading, “Angels,” which includes an extract from Richard II. Another annotator has listed the page numbers that include quotations from Shakespeare, starting next to Shakespeare’s name in the handwritten list and continuing on the blank leaf facing the title page. For these readers, at least, Shakespeare was the most important author in one of the earliest canons of early modern English poets.