SOURCE: Manning, R. J. “Rule and Order Strange: A Reading of Sir John Davies' Orchestra.” English Literary Renaissance 15, no. 2 (spring 1985): 175-94.

In the following essay, Manning examines the cosmological patterns reflected in the structure of Orchestra and argues that the moral implications of these patterns directly affect the tone and meaning of the poem.

To judge from recent critical responses, Davies' Orchestra is something of an enigma. On the one hand, it has been seen as a solemn statement of the theme of Order;¹ on the other, as little more than a chaotically exuberant, if finely executed, jeu d'esprit.² To support the latter view, Professor G. A. Wilkes has referred to the rather flippant reception Nashe and Marston, among others, first accorded the poem.³ But this offers little help. It would be imprudent to trust such men, to whom ridicule was a stock-in-trade, and whose remarks spring not...