SOURCE: Short, R. W. “The Metrical Theory and Practice of Thomas Campion.” PMLA 59, no. 4 (December 1944): 1003-18.

In the following essay, Short examines Campion's poetry, his theories on meter as expressed in Observations in the Art of English Poesie, and the importance of his contribution to the theories of metrical poetry of his time.

Most of the scant attention paid by critics to the poetry of Thomas Campion has been sidetracked by two considerations which, however interesting in themselves, have little to do with his real poetic accomplishments. One of these considerations is that he was a musician and almost alone among his contemporaries composed settings for his own poems; the other is that he played some part in the guerilla warfare waged by a few Elizabethan writers against rhyme. Before we can make a fresh adjustment to his poetry, we must dispose of the first and reckon with...