'CREATED GOOD AND FAIRE'--THE FICTIVE IMAGINATION AND SACRED TEXTS IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

Only two of the 20,000 extant poems printed in Elizabethan England appeared in English language Bibles. These two neglected poems tell an intriguing story about verse and religion, iconophobia and iconography. The publishers of the Bible placed both poems in the preliminary matter to the sacred text, and each poem served a significant function. The first poem, ‘Here is the Spring’, survives in scores of Elizabethan Bibles and was likely among the most familiar pieces of verse from the period. The second poem, ‘Created Good and Faire’, is the only surviving example of titulus verse printed in Elizabethan England. With titulus verse, the reader actually needs to identify and arrange the poem prior to reading. Taken together, the poems show how poetry and sacred texts could survive and complement each other during a period of conspicuous distrust and animosity between the fictive imagination and religious belief.