SOURCE: Sheidley, William E. “Barnabe Googe in His Time—and Afterwards,” and “The Later Translations: Images of Life.” In Barnabe Googe, pp. 16-27; 100-17. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981.

In the first excerpt which follows, Sheidley examines Googe's literary reputation and poetic style. In the second, he discusses themes and style in the final six works Googe translated.

Barnabe Googe in His Time—and Afterwards

I. Googe's Literary Reputation

Almost entirely forgotten for over a hundred years, Googe and his works were exhumed by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarians and bibliophiles.¹ Thomas Warton's matter-of-fact account set the tone for subsequent literary historians, whose distaste for Googe's writings is imperfectly hidden by scattered bits of grudging praise.² For some, Googe presented an opportunity to vent scholarly impatience or critical scorn. A speaker in Collier's Poetical Decameron remarks that Googe, “though a voluminous writer, and especially translator, has produced nothing original that I...