Born with Teeth: Christopher Brooke's The Ghost of Richard the Third (1614)

• Published in: The Seventeenth century Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 115 - 129
• Main Author: DOELMAN, JAMES
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Durham Taylor & Francis Group 01.09.1999; University of Durham, Centre for Seventeenth-Century Studies; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Brooke, Christopher (c 1570-1628); Donne, John (1572-1631); Dramatists; English literature; Oral cavity; Parliaments; Poetry; Poets; Politics; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
• ISSN: 0268-117X; 2050-4616
• DOI: 10.1080/0268117X.1999.10555459

Hitherto, Christopher Brooke has been most frequently noted by literary historians for his friendship with John Donne in the 1590s, and his imprisonment for assisting in Donne's elopement with Ann More. The Ghost of Richard the Third (1614), has been obscured by the combination of three factors in literary history. The first is the long shadow cast by Shakespeare's Richard the Third, written some twenty years before Brooke's poem. Doelman briefly outlines Brooke's role in the Addled Parliament of 1614, and from there consider his use of the satiric mode during this tumultuous period. He draws first on the introduction to the poem offered by William Browne's Eclogue 5 from The Shepherd's Pipe (1614), and then focus on how Brooke adapted the satiric voice and the usual outlines of the Virgilian poetic career to fit his political situation.