Important Authors and their Works
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Important Authors and their Works |
English and Modern Languages |
| ASCHAM, Roger
Ascham was born in Yorkshire in 1515, and entered
St. John's College, Cambridge in 1530. In 1545, he received a pension from
Henry VIII for his Toxophilus, a dialogue on archery. He
became Chief Orator for his school, in charge of making Latin orations for
important occasions. He would later become tutor to Elizabeth I. He
attained the position of Latin Secretary, and held the post through the
reigns of both Mary Tudor and Elizabeth. Ascham married in 1554. His other
important work, The Schoolmaster, was published in 1570, after his death
in 1568. Works:
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BACON, Francis Bacon was born in 1561, and is most associated with his work in natural philosophy. He attended Trinity, Cambridge, and Gray's Inn where he studied law. Although he was undoubtedly well trained, he found no favor at Elizabeth's court. He did prosper in the Jacobean court, however, and he was knighted in 1603. Afterwards, he accumulated many honors, including Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, Attorney General, and Solicitor General. The writing for which he is still most famous is his collection Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral. He also wrote a utopian vision entitled The New Atlantis, and The Advancement of Learning, an argument that impurities of truths could often be traced to impurities of language. Bacon died in 1626.
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CRASHAW, Richard Richard Crashaw, born in London in 1612 (possibly 1613), wrote with great expressive energy. He wrote both secular and religious verse. He was educated at the Charterhouse and Pemborke College, Cambridge. He became a fellow of Peterhouse in 1635, but abandoned his fellowship in 1643. He took orders in 1639. In 1645, he went abroad and became Catholic. He died in 1649 at his post in Loreto.
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DONNE, John Donne was born in 1572 to a prosperous family in London. He could not take a degree because he was Catholic, but he studied for three years at Oxford, three at Cambridge, and at the Inns of Court. In 1601, he secretly married Sir Thomas Egerton's niece. He had probably converted to Anglicanism by 1602, but he did not take orders until 1615. During a serious sickness in 1623, he wrote Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. His wife died in 1617, and in 1621, he became Dean of St. Paul's. Donne wrote his poetry with an eloquence that set him apart from the other poets of this period. He was very passionate, but also took the time to make sure he articulated well. He died in 1631.
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ELYOT, Thomas Elyot was born around 1490. He was trained informally to be a Clerk to the Justices of Assize, and his formal legal education came from the Middle Temple in London. Elyot translated several authors, and compiled a Latin-English dictionary. He wrote The Book Named the Governor after he lost his position under Cardinal Wolsey in 1530. He believed in the imitation of Latin and Greek syntax, and believed in incorporating classical words for the purpose of expanding expressive capabilities. He did choose to write in English rather than Latin. He believed that writing would help provide England with educated servants of the state. He died in 1546.
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HERBERT, George Herbert was born in 1593 to a distinguished family. He went to Wesminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served as a member of Parliament for two years, and in 1630, he became rector of Bemerton. Almost all of his English poetry was accomplished during the later years of his life. The Temple is his collection of religious poetry, and every poem contained within it is formally unique. He symbolically interprets almost all of clerical life in his poetry. He died in 1633.
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HERRICK, Robert Herrick was born in London to a goldsmith in 1591. After giving up his goldsmithing apprenticeship at the age of 22, he attended Cambridge. He worked through both a B.A. and an M.A. degree, and was ordained in 1623. He lived in London for several years after he took his degrees, and was a member of Ben Jonson's circle. In 1629, he moved to Devonshire, where he attained the living of the Dean Prior. He returned to London in 1647 after being ejected from his parish. Hesperides and Noble Numbers were published together in 1648, and he wrote very little thereafter. In 1660, he returned to Devonshire. He died in 1674.
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HOBBES, Thomas Hobbes was born in 1588. He worked as a secretary for Francis Bacon, but his career as a philosopher began while he was exiled in Paris from 1640 to 1651. His ideas were fiercely opposed by some; he rejected abstraction and favored materialism as a philosophy. He did not believe in the soul or in free will, and he defended absolute sovereignty as a way to keep men under control. He believed that men were the only fit subjects for poetry, not gods or fictitious characters. He died in 1679.
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HOWARD, Henry, Earl of Surrey Henry Howard was born in 1517, and was a courtier from his youth. He did many translations while he was young. He wrote the first English blank verse. He was a soldier in his lifetime, but he fell out of favor with Henry VIII and was beheaded in 1547. Works:
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JONSON, Ben Jonson was born in 1572 to a London bricklayer. He was educated at Westminster School , then became a soldier, and finally returned to London to the stage. He acted before he became a major playwright. He also composed quite a bit of poetry. He had a following of poets including Herrick and Cavalier poets, and his influence reached well beyond his group of immediate followers. He wrote 28 masques in all, and after James I took the throne in 1603, Jonson became the official masque-writing entertainer of the court. Though Jonson wrote private works, he was more public than his contemporaries, particularly Donne, to whom he is most comparable. When Charles I took the throne, Jonson lost some of his courtly influence and began to write more specifically for the Tribe of Ben, his followers. He died in 1637.
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MARLOWE, Christopher Marlowe was born in 1564 to a Canterbury shoemaker. He went to King's School, Canterbury and then to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1580. He earned his B.A. in 1684 and his M.A. in 1587. He worked for the government on a secret mission immediately after his graduation, rather than taking holy orders. He wrote in blank-verse, still sometimes called "Marlowe's mighty line". Despite all the writing Marlowe found time to do, he continued with his work for the government. In 1593, he was involved in a fatal sword fight. In 1593, the Privy Council ordered his arrest. While he was awaiting examination, he went to a tavern with some of his acquaintances where he got into a dispute with one of them and was stabbed to death.
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MARVELL, Andrew Marvell was born in
1621 to a Yorkshire clergyman. He was educated at Hull Grammar School and
Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a Royalist during the Civil War, and
after Cromwell's death, he became the Member of Parliament for Hull. He
wrote most of his lyric poetry by the early 1650s. In 1681, his
Miscellaneous Poems was published, but went largely unnoticed. He died in
1678. Work:
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MILTON, John Milton was born in 1608. Beginning with his time in university, he possessed a self-awareness that few poets before or since have possessed. He was educated at St. Paul's in London, Cambridge, and Christ's College where he earned his B.A. in 1629. He wrote Latin verse and prose while at Cambridge, and collected it in Prolusions. He wrote L'Allegro and Il Penseroso in 1631 while at Cambridge for his M.A. After he graduated in 1632, he moved home to write, and he produced most of his body of work while he was at Horton. He set high goals for himself during this period. From spring 1638 to summer 1639, he traveled in Italy . He set himself up as a private schoolmaster in London in 1640. In 1642, he married Mary Powell, but she left him after three months. She returned in 1645 and lived with him until her death in childbirth in 1649. Milton began to go totally blind in 1651 or 1652, but he dictated Paradise Lost and finish it by 1665.
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MORE, Thomas Sir Thomas More was born in 1478. He studied at Oxford, and at the Inns of Court where he completed his legal training. He lived among Carthusian monks in London but did not take orders. When he chose the law over the church, he served as an ambassador, a Member of Parliament, a member of the King's Council, Under-Treasurer of England , Speaker of the House of Commons, and Lord Chancellor. In 1499, on his first trip to London, he met Erasmus, whom he later consulted on Utopia. He was knighted by Henry VIII in 1521. He resigned as Lord Chancellor in 1532, upon Henry VIII's claim to be Supreme Head of the Church of England. After two years of poverty, More was arrested and committed to the Tower, where he was tried and convicted of treason. He was beheaded on July 6, 1535. Works:
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SHAKESPEARE, William Shakespeare was born in Stratford -on-Avon, Warwickshire, in 1564. In his lifetime, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, other poems, and many plays. He attended Stratford Grammar School. In 1582, he married the pregnant Anne Hathaway. He was probably in London by 1589, and by 1592, he was relatively well known because of knowledge of his Henry VI. Theatres closed because of a plague epidemic from 1592 to 1594. When they re-opened, he allied himself with the acting company Lord Chamberlain's Men, opposed to Lord Admiral's Men. When King James took over in 1603, the company was renamed The King's Men. When the lease on The Theatre ran out in 1599, they stall the demolition long enough to take the entire theatre down and relocate it across the river one board at a time. The result was named The Globe, and remained until it burned in 1613. Shakespeare's company had also performed at the more prestigious Blackfriar's Theatre since about 1609. He retired to Stratford in 1610, but he continued to write plays He died in 1616.
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SIDNEY, Philip Sidney was born in 1554 to an important family in Kent. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, Oxford, and Christ College, but he left without taking a degree in 1571. He traveled abroad afterwards and made many friends. He fought in Ireland and was killed in the Battle of Zutphen in Holland, fighting against the Spanish forces. He is noted for sprezzatura, or his aristocratic carelessness. During his travels, he became concerned with England's development of a national literature. This concern is evident in his Defence of Poesie. He finished his Old Arcadia in 1580, but never finished The New Arcadia (revisiom) that was published posthumously in 1590. Sidney was killed in 1586.
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SPENSER, Edmund Spenser was born in London in 1552. In 1569, he went to Pembroke Hall, a Puritan College of Cambridge. He got his meals for free in return for doing jobs around the school. He received his B.A. in 1573, and his M.A. in 1576. He had published poetry before he entered university. He experimented with meter and style. He married Machabyas Childe in the same year he published The Shepheardes Calendar. In 1589, he visited London with his neighbor, Sir Walter Ralegh, and received a pension for the first three books of The Faerie Queen from Elizabeth I. When he did not continue to receive pension, he moved to Ireland in 1598, and became Sheriff of Cork. He died in 1599 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
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WYATT, Thomas Wyatt was born in Kent in 1503. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge. He traveled as a courtier and diplomat During his lifetime, he helped to establish Elizabethan poetic conventions. He served Henry VIII, and though he was convicted of treason, he was acquitted a year before his death. Wyatt wrote short lyric stanzas, and the translations and adaptations of Petrarchan sonnets that brought the sonnet tradition into English literature. He died in 1542. Works:
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VAUGHAN, Henry Henry Vaughan was born in 1621 in Breconshire, Wales. He went to Jesus College, Oxford, but did not take a degree. He was familiar with hermetic and alchemical lore because of his brother, and this fed his new type of poetry in the1640s. His masterpieces were written after this change, and are contained in Silex Scintillans. He died in 1695. Works:
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