Abstract
HYDER ROLLINS BEGINS the introduction to his indispensable critical edition of Songs and Sonnets (1557), now known as Tottel's Miscellany, by ostensibly situating that text within early modern religious history. In startling terms, Rollins writes "in the spring and summer of 1557 martyrs' fires were sending a lurid glare throughout England," and adds, "to the accompaniment of fire and martyrs' shrieks the epoch-making book correctly known as Songs and Sonnets . . . made its appearance on June 5." In contrast to the martyrs' fires that died down, "the poetic fire started by the Songs burned more bright than ever in Elizabeth's reign." 1 Rollins's prose recaptures some of the "lurid glare" of those fires some 450 years ago, but his introduction merely serves as an arresting rhetorical device, and this tantalizing glimpse into early modern religious history and Tottel's Miscellany's relationship to it is left unexamined.
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