SOURCE: Litt, Gary L. “‘Images of Life’: A Study of Narrative and Structure in Fulke Greville's Caelica.” Studies in Philology LXIX, no. 2 (April 1972): 217-30.

In the following essay, Litt analyzes Caelica, focusing on the structure of the work as a whole.

The vogue of the Elizabethan sonnet sequence was short and, in terms of quality, if not quantity, relatively unproductive. Outside of the efforts of Shakespeare and Sidney there are no really impressive sequences, only impressive sonnets. The other sequences have been condemned to a literary limbo, and many deservedly so. In this respect we can accept Aikin's comment as axiomatic: “A bad sonnet is one of the dullest things in creation, and a series of them is absolutely intolerable.”¹ But not all sequences besides Sidney's and Shakespeare's are absolutely bad, and several are downright good. In particular, Fulke Greville's Caelica is a sequence which deserves far more...