George Turberville and the politics of tragedy, power and love in Tragical Tales (1574)

George Turberville is one of the most overlooked English poets of the Renaissance. To be sure, C. S. Lewis’ notorious view of him as a representative of the ‘Drab Age Verse’ ‘ruthlessly on the march along the hard shadeless road of poulter’s and fourteeners’1 has discouraged interest in his poetry.2 Yet, recently scholars have started to show how Turberville’s relatively demanding literary efforts, his plain style, and the link between the poet as Elizabethan public figure and his writing warrant further investigation.3 Turberville was the author of Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs and Sonnets (1567) and Epitaphes and Sonnets (1587), two volumes of poems in diverse metres and forms on themes like love, friendship, travel and the self. More significantly, he had a reputation as a translator. He translated Baptista Mantuan’s Eglogs (1567) and Dominicus Mancinus (A Plaine Path to Perfect Vertue, 1568); his version of Ovid’s Heroides (The Heroycall Epistles of Ovid, 1567, repr. 1569, 1570, 1584) - valuable for its adherence to Ovid’s own verse form and wording, and for its early experimentation with blank verse - remained the standard English translation for 70 years.4 Also, his renowned Booke of Faulconrie or Hauking (1575) draws on Renaissance Italian and French hunting manuals.5 But here I will turn my attention to an equally interesting effort: the collection Tragical Tales (1587), a translation of ten Italian tales - mostly novelle by Boccaccio and Bandello - probably first published in 1574.6.