“the more monosyllables that you use, the truer Englishman you shall seem, and the less you shall smell of the inkhorn”

Favouring plain native diction over elaborate learned vocabulary · Essay, Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme in English

• English
• Language
• Style

“The first and most necessary point that ever I found meet to be considered in making of a delectable poem is this, to ground it upon some fine invention. For it is not enough to roll in pleasant words, nor yet to thunder in rim, ram, ruff by letter, unless the invention have in it also aliquid salis.”

Insisting that genuine invention must underlie mere verbal skill or alliteration · Essay, Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Ryme in English

• Invention
• Originality
• Poetry

“I have not written this discourse to teach any man, but rather to learn myself.”

A modest reflection on poetry as a practice of self-education · Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English

• Poetry
• Truth