The literary case for de Vere's authorship

Oxford's characteristics as a poet are similar to those of the poet of "The Paine of Pleasure." As enumerated by Steven May[30], they include copiousness or amplification, rhetorical questioning, the ABABCC rhyme scheme, alliterative phrasing, and unusual variety of subject. None of these is distinctive but the last--indeed, May can find no tag that distinctively marks a poem as Oxford's--and copiousness, rhetorical questions, alliteration, and the ABABCC rhyme scheme are common in verse of the 1560s and 1570s. However, all of them are to be found in "The Paine of Pleasure."

Copiousness or amplification

Amplificatio--repetition and expansion to prove a point--is the basic rhetorical strategy of "The Paine of Pleasure": One pleasure after another is hollow and false. Within each pleasure, the point is repeated and amplified:

In getting first, the braine is busied,

With deepe deuise to cast a plot to gaine:

Then armes, hands, legges and feete, are occupied,

For cankered coyne, their strongest ioynt to straine….

This is (alas) a wicked way to gaine:

Yet not the wurst: for some, oh cursed they:

That seeke the meane to haue their parents slaine,

And Friendes and kinsfolkes closely make away.

To gaine their goods, but oh ill gotten gaine:

Whose getting breedes the soule eternall paine.

Rhetorical questions

Rhetorical questions appear frequently in the poem:

For beautie first breedes liking in the minde,

Liking breedes lust, lust lewdnes, lewdnes, what?

Alliterative phrasing

Alliterative phrasing is very common in "The Paine of Pleasure" (as it is in much mid-century verse):

But wealth so wunne. dooth breede no little woe….

As in such sorte dooth settle our delight:

As doth our wits withdrawe from wisdome quite…

Writing on honor and revenge

Steven May notes that Oxford is unusual among Elizabethan poets in writing on honor and revenge. Two of the pleasures, "Honor" and a large section of "Fencing," are about honor and revenge.

Which ioy to tell, by name is Honour hie,

Which noblest mindes account the greatest ioy:

Which first obtainde, by deadly ieopardie,

They doe God knowes, with care enough enioy.

Oh man most madde to loue so vaine a thing,

As with small ioy, doth thousand sorrowes bring.

And let me but demaund this question now,

Will you be pleasd with him that brake your pate?

Or will you not, almost you care not how,

Seeke your reuenge, and beare him deadly hate,

Untill you be reuenged in like sorte:

And tell me then, is not this prettie sporte?

Lack of didacticism

Didactic poems form a full quarter of all surviving Elizabethan printed verse; Oxford is not known to have written any.[31] "The Paine of Pleasure" attempts to be didactic, but constantly slips back toward a psychological secularism. It celebrates the pleasure of life; it acknowledges their mutability; but, unlike Munday's Mutabilitie poems, it does not offer a way out. Even the study of divinity is celebrated as a study and a "soul's salve" more than as an escape from the wheel of change.

Diuinitie dooth number out our dayes,

And showes our life, still fading as a flowre:

Bids vs beware of wanton wicked wayes,

For we are sure to liue no certaine howre.

Arithmaticke doth number worldly toyes,

Diuinitie innumerable ioyes.

Then iudge I pray which yeeldes the more delight,

Di[v]initie, then chuse it for thy ioy:

Studie that chiefe, and labour day and night,

By that to learne to shield thee from annoy.

And thou shalt finde it salueth euery sore:

And saues the soule, and what ioy can be more?

The pervasive secularism, and the valorization of psychological experience over didacticism, are as characteristic of Oxford as they are of the poet of "The Paine of Pleasure."

Variety of subjects

The subjects of Oxford's verse are more varied than those of other poets. Gascoigne is also a varied poet, and, if The Grief of Joy is actually the inspiration of "The Paine of Pleasure," we may ascribe part of the poem's variousness to the influence of Gascoigne. However, "The Paine of Pleasure" treats many more subjects than The Grief of Joy, in more detail, and with at least equal originality--no small achievement since Gascoigne was highly regarded in his day.

Stylistic similarities

Oxford's surviving verse uses the ABABCC rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter more than any other form.

His earlier verse shows the same interest in quantitative and irregular stress as does "The Paine of Pleasure":

Frámed in the frónt of fórlórn hópe…[32]

"The Paine of Pleasure" contains an unusual number of enjambed lines:

And Friendes and kinsfolkes, closely make away,

To gaine their goods… ("Riches")

By sacred Lawes, we can confute in kinde,

The vniust cause… ("Divinity")

Now see how farre this studie doth surpasse,

All studies else… ("Divinity")

Some men thereby perhaps doe take delight,

To make wrong right… ("Law")

Oxford's poetry contains fewer enjambed lines, but does contain some (and in this period enjambed lines are rare).

Even as the wax doth melt, or dew consume away

Before the sun… [33]

A crown of bays shall that man wear

That triumphs over me… [34]

Fram'd in the front of forlorn hope, past all recovery

I stayless stand…[35]

And since my mind, my wit, my head, my voice, and tongue are weak

To utter, move, devise, conceive, sound forth, declare and speak… [36]

Summary

In summary, Oxford's identified poems show stylistic similarities to "The Paine of Pleasure." The circumstances of his life match what can be inferred of the author's circumstances. Though "The Paine of Pleasure" is longer and more accomplished than any of Oxford's previously identified poems, nothing in it is startlingly different from them. Oxford is known to have been acquainted with both George Gascoigne, whose work may have inspired "The Paine of Pleasure," and with Anthony Munday. Finally, alone among identified court poets at this period, Oxford had previously allowed his work to be published in a book with commoner poets, as "The Paine of Pleasure" was.

No other identified poet is as likely to have written the poem as Oxford. We may reasonably conclude that the poem is his.