Renaissance poetry

:Famous poets
Thomas Campion

Thomas Campion was born in London on February 12, 1567. He was a law student, a  
physician, a composer, a writer of masques, and a poet. Campion's parents died when he
was still a boy, but they left enough money to send him to Peterhouse
College, Cambridge, in 1581. He left Cambridge in 1584, apparently without taking a
degree, and in 1586 was admitted toGray's Inn in London to study law. He participated
in the Gray's Inn revels of 1588 and contributed songs to the Gesta Grayorum revels of
.1594, but seems never to have been called to the bar

Campion's first poetic attempts were in Latin. His love of quantitative versification in      
classical Latin poems carried over into his English poems and songs. Campion was first
published in 1591, when five of his songs appeared in Newman's unauthorized edition
of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. Four years later he published his own book, a collection
of Latin epigrams, called Poemata (1595). Campion's reputation rests chiefly on his lyric
poems, which are distinguished for their musical quality and charm. They were
published 1601-1617 in four books of airs, beginning with A Booke of Ayres to be Sung
.to the Lute, Orpherian and Bass Viol (1601)
In 1602 Campion, a theorist of prosody, published the prose work Observations in      
the Art of English Poesie, in which he attacked “the vulgar and unartificial”, that is,
inartistic, custom of rhyming. Campion's theories on poetry, which he himself rarely
followed, were refuted by Samuel Daniel in Defence of Rhyme (1603). Ben Jonson also
stated that he had written a discourse against both Campion and Daniel, but regrettably
.the text is lost to us

Campion spent three years (1602-1605) on the Continent, and received the M.D.      
degree from the University of Caen in 1605. After returning to England, Campion was
practising as a doctor in London from 1606. During that time, he wrote several masques
which were performed at the court of James I. Perhaps the best of them was the Lords'
Masque (1613). In 1613 he also published A New Way of Making Fowre Parts in
Counterpoint, a book on music theory. In 1615 Campion was questioned about the
murder of , but was found innocent and released. Campion died in London, probably of
.the plague, on March 1, 1620, and was buried at St. Dunstan's-in-the-West

\\Please visit this wesite to see his work

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/campion.htm

Mary Herbert

Mary H. Herbert (born 1957) is an American Fantasy writer, author of the Dark Horse

.series and several Dragonlance novels
Mary H. (Houser) Herbert was born in Ohioin 1957 Growing up in Troy, Ohio, she was
interested in history and riding and was an avid reader of fantasy. Her first complete
Science Fiction/Fantasy short story won first prize in her high school's writing contest.

She continued to write stories, essays, and poetry while studying at the University of
Montana, the University of Wyoming, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies in Oxford, England.

Since publishing her first novel, Dark Horse, in 1990, TSR Books has published a further
six novels in the Dark Horse Series as well as Dragonlance universe and other novels,
three short stories in the Forgotten Realms Anthologies (see bibliography), and a
chapter on Sanction in Bertrem's Guide to the War of Souls, Volume One.

Ms. Herbert “currently lives in Metro Atlanta with her husband, two teenage children,
and assorted pets. She loves to read, write, work in the garden, and be with her family.
She does not like housecleaning, cockroaches, or Georgia's heat

Early Renaissance poetry

Famous poets

John Skelton
John Skelton, also known as John Shelton (c. 1460 – June 21, 1529), possibly born
.in Diss, Norfolk, was an English poet

Education

He is said to have been educated at Oxford. He certainly studied at Cambridge, and he is

probably the "one Scheklton" mentioned by William Cole as taking his M.A. degree in
1484. In 1490, William Caxton writes of him, in the preface to The Boke
of Eneydos compyled by Vyrgyle, in terms which prove that he had already won a
reputation as a scholar. "But I pray mayster John Skelton," he says, "late created poete
laureate in the unyversite of Oxenforde, to oversee and correct this sayd booke ... for him
I know for suffycyent to expowne and englysshe every dyffyculte that is therin. For he
hath late translated the epystlys of Tulle, and the boke of dyodorus siculus, and diverse
other works ... in polysshed and ornate termes craftely ... suppose he hath drunken
of Elycons well."

The laureateship referred to was a degree in rhetoric. In 1493 Skelton received the same
honour at Cambridge, and also, it is said, at Leuven. He found a patron in the pious and
learned Countess of Richmond, Henry VII's mother, for whom he wrote Of Mannes Lyfe
the Peregrynacioun, a translation, now lost, of Guillaume de Diguileville's Pèlerinage de
la vie humaine. An elegy "Of the death of the noble prince Kynge Edwarde the forth,"
included in some of the editions of the Mirror for Magistrates, and another (1489) on the
death of Henry Percy, fourth earl of Northumberland, are among his earliest poems.

His works

In his Garlande of Laurell Skelton gives a long list of his works, only a few of which are
extant. The garland in question was worked for him in silks, gold and pearls by the
ladies of the Countess of Surrey at Sheriff Hutton Castle, where he was the guest of
the duke of Norfolk. The composition includes complimentary verses to the various
ladies concerned, and a good deal of information about himself. But it is as a satirist that
Skelton merits attention. The Bowge of Court is directed against the vices and dangers of
court life. He had already in his Boke of the Thre Foles drawn on Alexander Barclay's
version of the Narrenschijf of Sebastian Brant, and this more elaborate and imaginative
poem belongs to the same class. Skelton, falling into a dream at Harwich, sees a stately
ship in the harbour called the Bowge of Court, the owner of which is the Dame Saunce
Pere. Her merchandise is Favour; the helmsman Fortune; and the poet, who figures as
Drede (modesty), finds on board F'avell (the flatterer), Suspect, Harvy Hafter (the clever
thief), Dysdayne, Ryotte, Dyssymuler and Subtylte, who all explain themselves in turn,
until at last Drede, who finds they are secretly his enemies, is about to save his life by
jumping overboard, when he wakes with a start. Both of these poems are written in the
seven-lined Chaucerian stanza, but it is in an irregular metre of his own that his most
characteristic work was accomplished.

The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe, the lament of Jane Scroop, a schoolgirl in

the Benedictine convent of Carrow near Norwich, for her dead bird, was no doubt
inspired by Catullus. It is a poem of some 1,400 lines and takes many liberties with the
formularies of the church. The digressions are considerable. We learn what a wide
reading Jane had in the romances of Charlemagne, of the Round Table, The Four Sons of
Aymon and the Trojan cycle. Skelton finds space to give an opinion of Geoffrey
Chaucer, John Gower and John Lydgate. Whether we can equate this opinion, voiced by
the character of Jane, with Skelton's own is contentious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Skelton

Thomas Wyatt

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – 24 September 1542) was a 16th-century English lyrical

poet whom scholars credit with introducing the sonnet into English. He was born
at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent – though his family was originally
from Yorkshire. His father, Henry Wyatt, had been one of Henry VII's Privy Councillors,
and remained a trusted adviser when Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509. In his turn,
Thomas Wyatt followed his father to court after his education at St John's College,
Cambridge. None of Wyatt's poems were published during his lifetime—the first book to
.feature his verse was printed a full fifteen years after his death
Education and diplomatic career

Wyatt was over six feet tall, reportedly both handsome and physically strong. Wyatt was
not only a poet, but also an ambassador in the service of Henry VIII. He first entered
Henry's service in 1516 as 'Sewer Extraordinary', and the same year he began studying
at St John's College of the University of Cambridge. He married Elizabeth Brooke (1503–
1560), the sister of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham, in 1521, and a year later she gave
birth to a son, Thomas Wyatt, the younger, who led Wyatt's rebellion many years after
his father's death. In 1524 Henry VIII assigned Wyatt to be an Ambassador at home and
abroad, and some time soon after he separated from his wife on the grounds of adultery.

He accompanied Sir John Russell to Rome to help petition Pope Clement VII to annul the
marriage of Henry VIII to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, an embassy whose goal was
to make Henry free to marry Anne Boleyn. According to some, Wyatt was captured by
the armies of Emperor Charles V when they captured Rome and imprisoned the Pope in
1527 but managed to escape and then made it back to England. In 1535 Wyatt was
knighted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_%28poet%29
,

The Elizabethans

Famous poets
Nicholas Grimald
Nicholas Grimald (or Grimoald) (1519–1562), English poet, was born
in Huntingdonshire, the son probably of Giovanni Baptista Grimaldi, who had been a
clerk in the service of Empson and Dudley in the reign of Henry VII.

He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in
1540. He then removed to Oxford, becoming a probationer fellow of Merton College in
1541. In 1547 he was lecturing on rhetoric at Christ Church, and shortly afterwards
became chaplain to Bishop Ridley, who, when he was in prison, desired Grimald to
translate Laurentius Valla's book against the alleged Donation of Constantine, and
the De gestis Basiliensis Concilii of Aeneas Sylvius (Pius II). His connection with Ridley
brought him under suspicion, and he was imprisoned in the Marshalsea. It is said that he
escaped the penalties of heresy by recanting his errors, and was despised accordingly by
his Protestant contemporaries. Grimald contributed to the original edition (June 1557)
of Songes and Sonettes (commonly known as Tottel's Miscellany), forty poems, only ten
of which are retained in the second edition published in the next month.

He translated (1553) Cicero's De officiis as Marcus Tullius Ciceroes thre bokes of

duties (2nd ed., 1556); a Latin paraphrase of Virgil's Georgics(printed 1591) is attributed
to him, but most of the works assigned to him by Bale are lost. Two Latin tragedies are
extant; Archipropheta sive Johannes Baptista, printed at Cologne in 1548, probably
performed at Oxford the year before, and Christus redivivus (Cologne, 1543), edited by
JM Hart (for the Modern Language Association of America, 1886, separately issued
1899).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Grimald

Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe was born in Lowestoft in 1561, and educated at St John's
College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1586, he became one of the "University Wits", a
circle of writers who came to London in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and wrote for the
stage and the press. In 1589 his preface to Robert Greene's Menaphon was published.
The preface attacked contemporary writers who plagiarized from classical authors, and
it praised Spenser and Greene. The Anatomie of Absurditie, also published in 1589,
.satirized contemporary literature, especially romances

Nashe took part in the Martin Marprelatecontroversy, answering attacks made on the       
Church of England by a Puritan group of writers known as Martin Marprelate. Using the
pen name 'Pasquil', Nashe may have written several satiric pamphlets, of which An
 .Almond for a Parrat (1590) is the only one attributed to him with conviction

Nashe also took part in a violent literary controversy with the poet Gabriel       
Harvey and his brother Richard. Richard Harvey had been extremely critical of
Nashe's preface to Greene's Menaphon, and Nashe retaliated in Pierce Penniless, His
Supplication to the Devil (1592). The work, a prose satire, was in part an attack on the
Harveys, as well as on Nashe's opponents in the Marprelate controversy; it also protests
against the public's neglect of worthy writers. Gabriel Harvey wrote an unpleasant
account of Greene's final days in his Four Letters the same year, and Nashe responded by
writing Four Letters Confuted to defend his dead friend's memory. The latter was
published in 1593, and is also known as Strange Newes of the Intercepting of Certain
 .Letters

For more information please visit

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/nashe.htm

Robert Southwell

Saint Sir Robert Southwell (c. 1561 – 21 February 1595) was an English Jesuit priest

and poet who worked as a missionary in post-Reformation England. He was hanged,
drawn and quartered at Tyburn, and became a Catholic martyr. He was born at Horsham
.St. Faith in Norfolk, England

Early life in England

Southwell, the youngest of eight children, was brought up in a family of Catholic gentry.
In 1576, he was sent to the Catholic English college at Douai, to become affiliated with
the Jesuit Missionaries. Upon arrival in Douai, he was actually admitted to the College of
Anchin, a French college associated with the university of Douai. At the end of the
summer, however, his education was interrupted by the movement of French and
Spanish forces. Southwell was sent to Paris for greater safety as a student of the College
de Clermont, under the tutelage of the Jesuit Thomas Darbyshire. He returned to Douai
on 15 June 1577. A year later, he set off to Rome with the intention of joining the society
of Jesus. A two-year novitiate at Tournai was required before joining the society,
however, and initially he was denied entry to the training. He appealed the decision by
sending a heartfelt, emotional letter to the school. He bemoans the situation,
writing: How can I but wast in anguish and agony that find myself disjoined from that
company severed from that Society, disunited from that body wherein lyeth all my life my
love my whole hart and affection (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Anglia 14, fol. 80,
under date 1578).

His efforts succeeded as he was admitted to the probation house of Sant’ Andrea on 17
October 1578 and in 1580 he joined the Society of Jesus. Immediately after the
completion of the novitiate, Southwell began studies in philosophy and theology at the
Jesuit College in Rome. During this time, he worked as a secretary to the rector and
writings of his are to be found amongst the school’s documents. Upon completion of his
studies, Southwell was admitted BA in 1584. In spite of his youth, he was made prefect
of studies in the Venerable English College at Rome and was ordained priest in 1584. He
was appointed “repetitor” (tutor) at the English College for two years before making
prefect of studies.

It was in that year that an act was passed forbidding any English-born subject of Queen
Elizabeth, who had entered into priests' orders in the Catholic Church since her
accession, to remain in England longer than forty days on pain of death. But Southwell,
at his own request, was sent to England in 1586 as a Jesuit missionary with Henry
Garnett. He went from one Catholic family to another, administering the rites of his
Church, and in 1589 became domestic chaplain to Ann Howard, whose husband, the first
earl of Arundel, was in prison convicted of treason. It was to him that Southwell
addressed his Epistle of Comfort. This and other of his religious tracts, A Short Rule of
Good Life, Triumphs over Death, Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears and a Humble
Supplication to Queen Elizabeth, were widely circulated in manuscript. Mary Magdalen's
Funeral Tears was published in 1591. Thomas Nashe's imitation of Mary Magdalen's
Funeral Tears in Christ's Tears over Jerusalem proves that the works received recognition
outside of Catholic circles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southwell_%28jesuit%29

Courtly poetry
Famous poets

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for The
Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegorycelebrating the Tudor
dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern
.English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English language

Life

Edmund Spenser was born in London around 1552. As a young boy, he was educated in
London at the Merchant Taylors' School and matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke
College, Cambridge.
In July 1580 Spenser went to Ireland, in the service of the newly appointed lord deputy,
Arthur Lord Grey de Wilton. Then he served with the English forces during the Second
Desmond Rebellion. After the defeat of the native Irish he was awarded lands in County
Cork that had been confiscated in the Munster Plantation during the Elizabethan
reconquest of Ireland. Among his acquaintances in the area was Walter Raleigh, a fellow
colonist.
In the early 1590s, Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet titled, A View of the Present State of
Ireland. This piece remained in manuscript until its publication and print in the mid-
seventeenth century. It is probable that it was kept out of print during the author's
lifetime because of its inflammatory content. The pamphlet argued that Ireland would
never be totally 'pacified' by the English until its indigenous language and customs had
been destroyed, if necessary by violence. Spenser recommended scorched earth tactics,
such as he had seen used in the Desmond Rebellions, to create famine. Although it has
been highly regarded as a polemical piece of prose and valued as a historical source on
16th century Ireland, the View is seen today as genocidal in intent. Spenser did express
some praise for the Gaelic poetic tradition, but also used much tendentious and bogus
.analysis to demonstrate that the Irish were descended from barbarian Scythian stoc

Later on, during the Nine Years War in 1598, Spenser was driven from his home by the
native Irish forces of Aodh Ó Néill. His castle at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork
was burned, and it is thought one of his infant children died in the blaze - though local
legend has it that his wife also died. He possessed a second holding to the south,
at Rennie, on a rock overlooking the river Blackwater in North Cork. The ruins of it are
still visible today. A short distance away grew a tree, locally known as "Spenser's Oak"
until it was destroyed in a lightning strike in the 1960s. Local legend has it that he
penned some or all of The Faerie Queene under this tree. Queen Victoria is said to have
visited the tree while staying in nearby Convamore House during her state visit to
.Ireland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Spenser

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616)  was
an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English
language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national
poet and the "Bard of Avon".His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist
of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His
plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more
.often than those of any other playwright

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he

married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children:Susanna, and
twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career
in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord
Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to
Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's
private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as
his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to
him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays
were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and
artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about
1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in
the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances,
and collaborated with other playwrights.

Poems
In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare
published two narrative poems on erotic themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of
Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus and
Adonis, an innocent Adonisrejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of
Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin.]Influenced by
Ovid's Metamorphoses, the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from
uncontrolled lust. Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's
lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman laments
her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in
1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics
consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects.The Phoenix and the Turtle,
printed in Robert Chester's 1601Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the
legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In 1599, two early drafts of
sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under
Shakespeare's name but without his permission

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552 – 29 October 1618) was an English aristocrat, writer, poet,
soldier, courtier, spy and explorer who is also largely known for popularising tobacco in
England.
Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and
Catherine Champernowne. Little is known for certain of his early life, though he spent
some time in Ireland, in Killua Castle, Clonmellon, County Westmeath, taking part in the
suppression of rebellions and participating in two infamous massacres at Rathlin
Island and Smerwick. Later he became a landlord of properties confiscated from the
Irish. He rose rapidly in Queen Elizabeth I's favour, being knighted in 1585. He was
involved in the early English colonization of Virginia under aroyal patent. In 1591 he
secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without
the Queen's permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London.
After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset.

In 1594 Raleigh heard of a "City of Gold" in South America and sailed to find it,
publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the
legend of "El Dorado". After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned
in the Tower, this time for allegedly being involved in the Main Plot against King James I,
who was not favourably disposed toward him. In 1616, however, he was released in
order to conduct a second expedition in search of El Dorado. This was unsuccessful and
men under his command ransacked a Spanish outpost. He returned to England, and to
appease the Spanish was arrested and executed in 1618.

Little is known about Raleigh's birth. Some historians believe Raleigh was born in 1552,
while others guess as late as 1554. He grew up in the house of Hayes Barton, a farmer, in
the village of East Budleigh, not far from Budleigh Salterton in Devon, England. He was
the youngest of five sons born to Catherine Champernowne in two successive marriages.
His half brothers, John Gilbert, Humphrey Gilbert, Adrian Gilbert, and full brother Carew
Raleigh were also prominent during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Catherine
Champernowne was a niece of Kat Ashley, Elizabeth's governess, who introduced the
young men at court. (Ronald, p. 249).

Raleigh's family was strongly Protestant in religious orientation and had a number of
near-escapes during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I of England. In the most
notable of these, Raleigh's father had to hide in a tower to avoid execution. As a result,
during his childhood, Raleigh developed a hatred of Catholicism and proved himself
quick to express it after the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England came to the throne
in 1558.

In 1568 or 1572, Raleigh was registered as an undergraduate at Oriel College, Oxford,

but does not seem to have taken up residence. In 1575, he was registered at the Middle
Temple. His life between these two dates is uncertain, but, from a reference in
his History of the World, he seems to have served with the French Huguenots at
the Battle of Jarnac, 13 March 1569. At his trial in 1603, he stated that he had never
studied law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh