SOURCE: Farnsworth, Jane. “‘An equall, and a mutuall flame’: George Wither's A Collection of Emblemes 1635 and Caroline Court Culture.” In Deviceful Settings: The English Renaissance Emblem and Its Contexts, edited by Michael Bath and Daniel Russell, pp. 83-96. New York: AMS Press, 1999.

In the following essay, Farnsworth investigates the cultural context of Wither's emblem collection.

In the introduction to the Renaissance English Text Society edition of George Wither's A Collection of Emblemes: Ancient and Moderne (1975), Rosemary Freeman comments that the text, according to Wither begun some twenty years before its publication date, would have been more up-to-date if it had appeared contemporaneously with the emblem books of Whitney in 1586 and Peacham in 1612 instead of in 1635. Freeman seems to be suggesting here that the date is misleading if we are attempting to understand the nature and success of Wither's work. In terms of style, she may be right, but...