William Webbe s A Discourse of English Poetry (1586) is the first printed treatise exclusively dedicated to devising a canon for the definition of poetry in England. Traditionally eclipsed by the academic centrality of Philip Sidney s The Defence of Poesy (c. 1580; published 1595) and George Puttenham s The Art of English Poesy (1589), this is the first critical edition of the essay in over a hundred years. This volume presents a modern-spelling text and a critical apparatus derived from the collation of the first printed document with subsequent editions. The explanatory notes incorporate...