SOURCE: An introduction to The Phoenix and the Turtle, in The Poems, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 41-53.

In the following excerpt, Roe studies critical approaches to The Phoenix and Turtle, surveys its relation to literary tradition, and evaluates the work stylistically.

The Historical Context

Not least in presenting problems for interpretation is the fact that as well as possessing inherent complexity, The Phoenix and the Turtle is only one¹ of several poems by various hands collected by Robert Chester, himself the fullest contributor, in a volume called Loves Martyr which was published in 1601.² Attempting to puzzle out internal and external correspondences calls to mind the predicament of the man in a sequence of New Yorker cartoons who, after contriving to arrange various floating jigsaw shapes of land into an island on which he triumphantly stands, sees approaching other men on their islands with whom he must now attempt...