What I Read in May 2026 – “These stories appeal to my sense of humor as well as my taste for formal constraints.”

NOT SHAKESPEARE Poems and a Defence of Ryme (1592-1605), Samuel Daniel – Author of the “Delia” sequence of fifty sonnets, a genuine sequence, with for example lines ending one poem and beginning the next. For some reason Thomas Campion, a writer of the most beautiful songs, wrote an essay arguing that English poetry should exclude rhyme, inspiring Daniel’s great defense of rhyme. Rhetorically great – the argument as such is something like rhyme sounds great and English poetry should sound like English no matter what the Romans did and isn’t poetry wonderful? Simplifying a bit. The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry (1604?), Elizabeth Cary – This one is over here. All Fools (1604?), George Chapman – And this one over there. One more play coming up soon, John Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan, and I take a break for the summer. FICTION Tales of Hulan River (1942), Xiao Hong – A year ago I read Xiao Hong’s earlier novel The Field of Life and Death (1935). Both her novels are quite…