SOURCE: Weld, John S. “Some Problems of Euphuistic Narrative: Robert Greene and Henry Wotton.” Studies in Philology 45, No. 2 (April 1948): 165-71.

In the following essay, Weld argues that Courtlie Controuersie of Cupid's Cautels, Wotton's translation of Jacque D'Yer's Le Printemps D'Yver, is a source for Robert Greene's Mamillia, and he delineates what form this influence takes.

Among the sources for Robert Greene's first novel, the first part of Mamillia (1580), is one which has remained unnoticed, Henry Wotton's Courtlie Controuersie of Cupid's Cautels (1578).¹ The source is important because what Greene borrowed and the changes he made are illustrative of his problems as a euphuistic novelist.

Wotton's book is a translation of Jacque D'Yver's Le Printemps D'Yver (1572), and for the most part it justifies the remark of the translator that it follows the original “as near as our English phrase will permit.”² Occasionally he euphuizes the sentence structure by the use...