By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Chidiock Tichborne was only 24 years old when he was executed in the most horrifically brutal way, by being hanged, drawn, and quartered, for his role in the Catholic Babington Plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I in 1586. Tichborne’s Elegy, which he composed on 19 September 1586 on the eve of his execution and sent to his wife Agnes, remains his most famous poem, and an oft-anthologised example of sixteenth-century English verse.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) was a Renaissance man: an Elizabethan soldier, statesman, and poet, who also wrote one of the first long works of prose fiction (some say one of the first novels) in English literature. But he is chiefly remembered now for his poetry, and ‘My true love hath my heart, and I have his’ is one of his most widely anthologised love poems. What follows is a brief summary and analysis of the poem.
My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a bargain better driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides: