Michael Drayton | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Drayton, 1599 | |
| Born | 1563 (1563) |
| Died | 23 December 1631(1631-12-23) (aged 67–68) |
| Resting place | Poets' Corner,Westminster Abbey, London |
| Pen name | "Rowland" |
| Occupation | poet |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Historical poetry |
| Notable works | "Mortimeriados",Poly-Olbion, "The Battaile of Agincourt" |
Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was anEnglish poet who came to prominence in theElizabethan era, continuing to write through the reign ofJames I and into the reign ofCharles I.[1] Many of his works consisted of historical poetry. He was also the first English-language author to write odes in the style ofHorace.[1][2] He died in 1631 in London.[2]
Drayton was born atHartshill, nearNuneaton,Warwickshire, England, in early 1563. Not much is documented about his early life, except that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere ofCollingham, Nottinghamshire. In his early years, it is believed that Drayton entered the service of SirHenry Goodere, who provided for Drayton's education.[2] 19th- and 20th-century scholars, on the basis of scattered allusions in his poems and dedications, suggested that Drayton might have studied at theUniversity of Oxford, and been intimate with thePolesworth branch of the Goodere family. More recent work has cast doubt on those speculations, suggesting that it is more likely Drayton's "social status was inferior to that ofWilliam Shakespeare and well below that ofEdmund Spenser orSamuel Daniel, both of whom obtained university degrees".[1][3]
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In 1590, he produced his first book,The Harmony of the Church, a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated toLady Devereux.[4] It is notable for a version of theSong of Solomon, executed with considerable richness of expression. However, with the exception of forty copies, seized by theArchbishop of Canterbury, the whole edition was destroyed by public order. Nevertheless, Drayton published a vast amount within the next few years.
In 1593 appearedIdea: The Shepherd's Garland, a collection of nine pastorals, in which he celebrated his personal love-sorrows under the pseudonym of Rowland. Drayton then produced two further 'Ideas': a cycle of 51sonnets entitledIdeas Mirrour (1594, expanded and revised asIdea in several versions from 1599 to 1619), by which we learn that the lady lived by the river Ankor inWarwickshire, and anepyllion,Endimion and Phoebe: Ideas Latmus (1595).[5]
This has led to the notion that he failed to win his "Idea", and lived and died a bachelor, one of a series of biographical interpretations of the poems that Jean Brink sees as "romantic flourishes".[6]
It has been said Drayton's sonnets possess a direct, instant and universal appeal because of their simple straightforward ring and foreshadowing of the smooth style ofFairfax,Waller andDryden. Drayton was the first to bring the termode, for a lyrical poem, to popularity in England and was a master of the short,staccatoAnacreontics measure.[7]
Also in 1593 there appeared the first of Drayton's historical poems,The Legend ofPiers Gaveston, and the next year saw the publication ofMatilda, anepic poem inrhyme royal. It was about this time, too, that he brought outEndimion and Phoebe, a volume which he never republished, but which contains some interesting autobiographical matter, and acknowledgments of literary help fromThomas Lodge, if not fromEdmund Spenser andSamuel Daniel also. In hisFig forMomus, Lodge reciprocated these friendly courtesies.
In 1596, Drayton published his long and important poemMortimeriados, a very serious production inottava rima. He later enlarged and modified this poem, and republished it in 1603 under the title ofThe Barons' Wars. In 1596 also appeared another historical poem,The Legend ofRobert, Duke of Normandy, with whichPiers Gaveston was reprinted. In 1597 appearedEngland's Heroical Epistles, a series of historical studies, in imitation of those ofOvid. These last poems, written in theheroic couplet, contain some of the finest passages in Drayton's writings.
By 1597, the poet was resting on his laurels. It seems that he was much favoured at the court ofElizabeth, and he hoped that it would be the same with her successor. In 1603, he addressed a poem of compliment toJames I on his accession, but it was ridiculed and his services were rejected. His bitterness found expression in asatire,The Owl (1604), but he had no talent in this kind of composition. Not much more entertaining was his scriptural narrative ofMoses in a Map of his Miracles, a sort of epic in heroics printed the same year. In 1605, Drayton reprinted his most important works, his historical poems and theIdea, in a single volume which ran through eight editions during his lifetime. He also collected his smaller pieces, hitherto unedited, in a volume undated, but probably published in 1605, under the title ofPoems Lyric and Pastoral; these consisted ofodes,eclogues and a fantastic satire calledThe Man in the Moon. Some of the odes are extremely spirited.
He had adopted as early as 1598 the extraordinary resolution of celebrating all the points oftopographical orantiquarian interest in the island ofGreat Britain, and on this laborious work he was engaged for many years. At last, in 1613, the first part of this vast work was published under the title ofPoly-Olbion, eighteen books being produced, to which the learnedJohn Selden supplied notes.
The success of this work, which has since become so famous, was very small at first, and not until 1622 did Drayton succeed in finding a publisher willing to undertake the risk of bringing out twelve more books in a second part. This completed the survey of England, and the poet, who had hoped "to crownScotland with flowers," and arrive at last at theOrcades, never crossed theTweed.
In 1627 he published another of his miscellaneous volumes, and this contains some of his most characteristic writing. It consists of the following pieces:The Battle of Agincourt, an historical poem in ottava rima (not to be confused with his ballad on the same subject),[8] andThe Miseries of QueenMargaret,[9] written in the same verse and manner;Nimphidia, the Court of Faery, an epic of fairyland;The Quest of Cinthia andThe Shepherd's Sirena, two lyrical pastorals; and finallyThe Moon Calf, a sort of satire.Nimphidia is the most critically acclaimed, along with his famous ballad on thebattle of Agincourt.[10] The last of Drayton's voluminous publications wasThe Muses' Elizium in 1630.
In one of Drayton's poems, an elegy or epistle to MrHenry Reynolds, he left some valuable criticisms on English poets fromChaucer's time to his own, including Shakespeare.
According to one 19th century source,
The merits of Drayton as a poet are truly great. His historical poems have about them a heavy magnificence; the most gorgeous images and the boldest descriptions follow in stately array, clothed in well-turned and appropriate verse …[11]
He died in London, was buried inPoets' Corner inWestminster Abbey, and had a monument placed over him by theCountess of Dorset,[12] with memorial lines attributed toBen Jonson. The memorial was sculpted byEdward Marshall.[13]
Like other poets of his era, Drayton was active in writing for the theatre; but unlike Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, orSamuel Daniel, he invested little of his art in the genre. For a period of only five years, from 1597 to 1602, Drayton was a member of the stable of playwrights who supplied material for the theatrical syndicate ofPhilip Henslowe. Henslowe'sDiary links Drayton's name with 23 plays from that period, and shows that Drayton almost always worked in collaboration with other Henslowe regulars, likeThomas Dekker,Anthony Munday andHenry Chettle, among others.[14] Of these 23 plays, only one has survived, that being Part 1 ofSir John Oldcastle, which Drayton composed in collaboration with Munday,Robert Wilson andRichard Hathwaye. The text ofOldcastle shows no clear signs of Drayton's hand; traits of style consistent through the entire corpus of his poetry (the rich vocabulary of plant names, star names and other unusual words; the frequent use of original contractional forms, sometimes with double apostrophes, like "th'adult'rers" or "pois'ned'st") are wholly absent from the text, suggesting that his contribution to the collaborative effort was not substantial.William Longsword, the one play that Henslowe'sDiary suggests was a solo Drayton effort, was never completed.
Drayton may have preferred the role of impresario to that of playwright; he was one of the lessees of theWhitefriars Theatre, together with Thomas Woodford, nephew of the playwrightThomas Lodge, when it was started in 1608. Around 1606, Drayton was also part of a syndicate that chartered a company ofchild actors, The Children of the King's Revels. These may or may not have been the Children of Paul's under a new name, since the latter group appears to have gone out of existence at about this time. The venture was not a success, dissolving in litigation in 1609.
Drayton was a friend of some of the most famous men of the age. He corresponded familiarly with Drummond; Ben Jonson,William Browne,George Wither and others were among his friends. VicarJohn Ward, who was transferred toStratford-upon-Avon in 1661, in his attempt to compile hearsay of Shakespeare, wrote that "Shakespear Drayton and Ben Jhonson (sic) had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted."
In 1748 a folio edition of Drayton's complete works was published under the editorial supervision ofWilliam Oldys, and again in 1753 there appeared an issue in four volumes quarto[15] but these were very unintelligently and inaccurately prepared.[citation needed]
A complete edition of Drayton's works with variant readings was projected by Richard Hooper in 1876, but was never carried to a conclusion; a volume of selections, edited byA. H. Bullen, appeared in 1883. See especiallyOliver Elton,Michael Drayton (1906).
A complete five-volume edition of Drayton's work was published by Oxford in 1931–41 (revised 1961), edited by J. William Hebel,K. Tillotson and B. H. Newdigate. That and a two-volume edition of Drayton's poems published at Harvard in 1953, edited by John Buxton, are the only 20th-century editions of his poems recorded by theLibrary of Congress.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Gosse, Edmund (1911). "Drayton, Michael". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 557–558.
