As he himself said, Drayton’s sonnets are the most “sportive” of the great Elizabethan love poems, “ever in motion,” by turns “wild, madding, jocund, and irregular,” yet maintaining a universality and sturdy good sense that have spoken to the hearts of hearers and readers for four centuries. This recording includes in full not only his famous final collection, Idea (1619), but also the earlier Idea’s Mirror (1594), as well as the various love sonnets that he wrote on other occasions.

As he himself said, Drayton’s sonnets are the most “sportive” of the great Elizabethan love poems, “ever in motion,” by turns “wild, madding, jocund, and irregular,” yet maintaining a universality and sturdy good sense that have spoken to the hearts of hearers and readers for four centuries. This recording includes in full not only his famous final collection, Idea (1619), but also the earlier Idea’s Mirror (1594), as well as the various love sonnets that he wrote on other occasions.

As he himself said, Drayton’s sonnets are the most “sportive” of the great Elizabethan love poems, “ever in motion,” by turns “wild, madding, jocund, and irregular,” yet maintaining a universality and sturdy good sense that have spoken to the hearts of hearers and readers for four centuries. This recording includes in full not only his famous final collection, Idea (1619), but also the earlier Idea’s Mirror (1594), as well as the various love sonnets that he wrote on other occasions.