Barnabe Barnes
| Barnabe Barnes | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1571 |
| Died | 1609 (aged c. 38) |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | poet |
Barnabe Barnes (c. 1571–1609), was an English poet. He is known for his Petrarchan love sonnets and for his combative personality, involving feuds with other writers and culminating in an alleged attempted murder.
The third son of Dr Richard Barnes, bishop of Durham, he was baptized in York at the church of St Michael le Belfry on 6 March 1571. In 1586 he was entered at Brasenose College, Oxford but did not take his degree. His father died in 1587 leaving two-thirds of his estate to be divided among his six children, and Barnes appears to have been able to live on income from this bequest. In 1591 he went to France with the earl of Essex, who was then serving against the prince of Parma. On his return he published Parthenophil and Parthenophe, Sonnettes, Madrigals, Elegies and Odes (ent. on Stationers' Register 1593), dedicated to his "dearest friend," the poet and nobleman William Percy, who contributed a sonnet to the eulogies prefixed to a later work, Offices. Parthenophil was possibly printed for private circulation, and the copy in the duke of Devonshire's library is believed to be unique.
Barnabe Barnes was well acquainted with the work of contemporary French sonneteers, to whom he is largely indebted, and he borrows his title, apparently, from a Neapolitan writer of Latin verse, Hieronymus Angerianus. "Parthenophil and Parthenophe" are the names given to the two protagonists in the sonnets, the first name meaning "virgin-lover" and the second "virgin". It is possible to outline a story from this series of love lyrics, but the incidents are slight, and in this case, as in other Elizabethan sonnet-cycles, it is difficult to dogmatize as to what is the expression of a real personal experience, and what is intellectual exercise in imitation of Petrarch. Parthenophil abounds in passages of great freshness and beauty, although its elaborate conceits are sometimes over-ingenious and strained. For example the passage in which Parthenophil wishes to be transformed into the wine his mistress drinks, so that he might pass through her, excited the derision of at least one hostile contemporary critic, Thomas Nashe.
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