author
Richard Barnfield
1574–1627
An Elizabethan poet remembered for elegant pastoral verse and for writing some of the period’s most striking poems of male desire. His small body of work still draws attention for its closeness to Shakespeare’s world and for its unusual honesty of feeling.
1 Audiobook
The Affectionate Shepherd
by Richard Barnfield
About the author
Richard Barnfield was an English poet of the late 16th century, born in Staffordshire in 1574. He studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, and published his best-known work while still young, including The Affectionate Shepherd and later collections of sonnets and poems.
His writing was shaped by classical models and by the literary fashion of the Elizabethan sonnet, but it stands out for its direct treatment of love between men. That openness has made Barnfield especially important to modern readers, even though only a small number of works are securely tied to his name.
Barnfield has also long interested scholars because of his connection to Shakespeare’s era. He admired Shakespeare, and his poems have often been discussed alongside the sonnets and the wider literary culture of the 1590s. No verified portrait was found from the sources reviewed.