- Geoffrey Whitney
Geoffrey Whitney (c. 1548 – c. 1601) was an English poet. He was born at
Coole Pilate , in the parish of Acton, four miles fromNantwich inCheshire , in or about 1548.His family had been settled on a smallestate at Coole Pilate since 1388.He was educated at the neighbouring school of
Audlem .He then attendedOxford , andMagdalene College ,Cambridge , leaving the university without a degree.On
1 March 1586 he began to attend the newly founded university ofLeyden , in the Netherlands, and later in the year he published atPlantin 's press hisemblem book "Choice of Emblems".The book was dedicated to the
Earl of Leicester from London, the28 November 1585 , with an epistle to the reader dated Leyden4 May 1586 . This appears to be a second edition, if so, the first was hand-written, and not printed.His 248
emblems , one or morestanzas of six lines (aquatrain followed by acouplet ), have adevice orwoodcut with amotto .Addressed to his kinsmen or friends, or to a notable contemporary, they give information of persons, places, and things not often to be found elsewhere.
Twenty-three of the devices are original, and 23 are suggested by, and 202 identical with, those of
Alciati ,Paradin ,Sambucus ,Junius , andFaerni .The work was the first of its kind to give to Englishmen an adequate example of the emblem books from the great continental presses. It was mainly from this book, representing the greater part of emblem literature preceding it, that
Shakespeare gained the knowledge of the great foreign emblematists of the sixteenth century. Whitney's verses are often of great merit, and always show extensive learning.Isabella Whitney , sister of the poet, was likewise a writer of verses. Her principal work, "A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posye, contayning a Hundred and Ten Phylosophicall Flowers", appeared in 1573.Notes
The is no evidence that the Whitneys of Cheshire were related to the Whitneys of
Whitney-on-Wye inHerefordshire .References
# Sidney Lee, ed., Dictionary of National Biography (New York: The MacMillan Company; London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1900), vol. LXI, pages 142-143.
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