SOURCE: Fieler, Frank B. Introduction to Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonnettes by Barnabe Googe, pp. v-xxii. Gainesville, Fla.: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1968.

In the following excerpt, Fieler discusses Googe's life and the poetry from his Eclogues, Epitaphs, and Sonnets, arguing that Googe's greatest literary achievement is his influence on the development of plain style lyrics in the century after his death.

I

Barnabe Googe (1540-1594)¹ was one of that large group of Elizabethan civil servants with Puritan religious preferences, who assiduously spent their spare time translating continental works for the greater glory of the English language and for the edification of those Englishmen without languages. He attended both Oxford and Cambridge, took a degree at neither, and by 1560, when he published his translation of the first three books of The Zodiacke of Life, by Marcellus Palingenius, was living at Staples Inne. During the next year he probably entered the service...