Thomas More’s Fortune Verses
A contribution to the solution of a few problems
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20146865 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hubertus Schulte Herbruggen (corresponding author) |
| Translators | Amos Johannes Hunt |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 48 (Number 185 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 121-148 |
| Publication date | 2011-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Moreana (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0047-8105 • E-ISSN: 2398-4961 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/more.2011.48.3-4.7 |
| OpenAlex | W2584385436 |
| Language | EN |
In this seminal article, first published in German in 1967, Hubertus Schulte Herbrüggen offers answers to several important open questions regarding the textual history and structure of Thomas More’s Fortune Verses. He argues convincingly that the text should be dated about 1503 and that Richard Hill’s hand-written copy may be treated as the earliest source. Furthermore, he identifies the sources for two groups of stanzas among the sections of questionable provenance, which appear only in Robert Wyer’s edition. Internal evidence, together with William Rastell’s testimony, suggests that the fortune telling book for which the poems probably functioned as a preface was an early English version of Lorenzo Spirito’s popular lottery book Libro de le sorte. Their purpose was to admonish enthusiasts of the lottery book to humble themselves and not to take their game too seriously. The theme of the vanity of the coveted prizes of fortune recurs throughout More’s corpus
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Economics · German · Literature · Lottery · Poetry · Theme (computing) · Classics · Computer Science · Early Modern Spanish Literature · History · Medieval Literature and History · Renaissance Literature and Culture
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |