Thomas Nashe, Nashe's Lenten Stuff

Anthony Ossa-Richardson (Queen Mary, University of London)

Ed. by J A Roe, University of York
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1599

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Satire

Resources

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Early in his documentary-essay

Magnetic North

(2008), Jonathan Meades extols the herring as the defining staple of Northern Europe, comparable to the Mediterranean olive, and “infinitely preferable to lobster or sole”. From Arras to Helsinki, a dish of herring with the local tipple punctuates his meander along the coast, leitmotiv as celebration. But Meades was not the first to praise the fish. A stray snippet by John Taylor the Water Poet, four centuries earlier, noted:

Tom Nash a witty pamphlet did endite In praise of Herrings, both the red and write. (Taylor, sig. Fff2v)

Tom Nash

a witty pamphlet did enditeIn praise of Herrings, both the red and write

. (Taylor, sig. Fff2v)

Taylor was here referring, in the course of a long litany of previous mock encomia, to Nashe’s Lenten

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1925 words

Citation: Ossa-Richardson, Anthony. "Nashe's Lenten Stuff". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 July 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3323, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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