"Look on thy Mary with her bitter tears": Nicholas Breton's impersonations of Mary Sidney.

In the early 1590s Nicholas Breton wrote two extraordinary poems in the voice of his patron Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke: "The Countesse of Penbrookes Love" and "The Countesse of Penbrooks Passion." These present Mary Sidney as a Magdalene-like penitent, giving bodily expression to sinful guilt as tears, sighs, and sobs. Both Breton's appropriation of his patron's voice and his characterisation of her as a remorseful sinner may seem potentially offensive; yet his "Mary poems" participate in important literary trends. He is one of the first poets to respond to the influence of Robert Southwell, and to blend this with the Psalm-based Protestant poetry of the passions in which Mary Sidney herself was active. Moreover, as female complaints, Breton's "Mary poems" stand alongside other 1590s experiments in the literary representation of inner states. Placed in these contexts, they reveal Breton as an innovative poet of the mind and emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]