British Ephemeral Literature - Matthias A. Shaaber (essay date 1929)
Matthias A. Shaaber (essay date 1929)
SOURCE: “Personal News,” in Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, 1476-1622, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1929, pp. 13-34.
[In the following excerpt, Shaaber shows that broadside ballads and other inexpensive verse often served as a means of disseminating news about the British royalty and popular heroes, and he notes that these publications eventually evolved into newspapers.]
Personal news, as we may call it, is probably the oldest kind. It is a record or, more often, merely a celebration of the achievements of a personage of importance, from the sovereign himself to a prominent London merchant, written by one of his liegemen, retainers, or clients, or by an admirer whom his attainments have inspired at a distance. Sometimes encomia of this sort were written from motives little better than selfish, for the courtier who wrote a poem glorifying the virtues of his master might...
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