Samuel Daniel

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Samuel Daniel.

Samuel Daniel (* probably 1562 near Taunton , Somerset ; † October 14, 1619 in Beckington , Somersetshire) was an English poet and historiographer of the Elizabethan period . He found his way into literary history mainly as a poet , although his contemporaries knew him as a versatile author who mastered the most diverse literary genres such as poetry, drama and masquerade with ease.

life and work

Little is known about Daniel's childhood and youth. Most likely he was the son of a music teacher of simple origin. His brother John Daniel was a musician (he published a collection of pieces for lute, violin and voice in 1606), his sister Rosa, the archetype of Rosalinde in Edmund Spenser's "The Shepherds Calendar" , later married the Montaigne translator John Florio .

From 1579 to 1582 he attended Magdalen Hall (now Herdford College) in Oxford , where he devoted himself particularly to poetry and philosophy. In 1586 a Samuel Daniel appears as a servant to Edward Stafford (3rd Baron Stafford), the English ambassador to France, who in all probability is the poet. He later had the patronage of Mary Sidney , Countess of Pembroke, who wrote herself and gathered a circle of writers around her on her country estate at Wilton House near Salisbury ( "Wilton Circle" ). Officially, he was the teacher of her son William Herbert. She encouraged him to become literary.

His first work was a translation by Paulus Jovius published in 1585 . His first collection of poems (the sonnet cycle "Delia" and the romance "The complaint of Rosamund" , in which the ghost accuses a murdered woman) appeared in 1592 and was reprinted many times during his lifetime. From today's perspective, the sonnet collection "Delia" , which also had a formative influence on Shakespeare's sonnets, is Daniel's main work. In the sonnets to Delia, Daniel developed the characteristic form of the English sonnet with three quartets and a final couplet .

Title page of the edition of The Civile Wares (1609) with a portrait of Samuel Daniel

In the appendix of an edition from 1594 there is also the tragedy "Cleopatra" , in which he closely followed the tradition of the Senecas tragedies. The original version of "Cleopatra" was revised by Daniels in 1599 and extensively in 1607. The version of 1599 also had an impact on Shakespeare's " Antony and Cleopatra " (probably composed in 1606), which presumably led Daniel in turn to another extensive revision of his own play.

From 1595 to 1604 Daniel devoted himself to his great historical work “Civil Wars” , which described the lengthy history of the Wars of the Roses in epic verses . On the one hand, the civil war issue was highly topical for the Elizabethans in view of Elizabeth I's lack of marriage and children ; on the other hand, it is assumed that Daniel's political advocacy for a strong monarchy motivated him to choose this topic for his historical epic. The first part of the poem "The first four books of the civil wars" appeared for the first time in 1595, the epic was completed in 1609 in eight books. Even before the work was finally completed, “The first four books” were also included in his “Poetical Essays” from 1599, along with “Musophilus” and “A letter from Octavia to Marcus Antonius” . At that time he was the teacher of Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of the Countess of Cumberland.

After Edmund Spenser's death , Daniel was the official court poet ( "Poet Laureate" ) from 1599 to 1619 , but then gave the title to Ben Jonson . His brother-in-law John Florio gave him access to the court of James I , where he presented the king in Burleigh Harrington ( Burley-on-the-hill ) with a "Panegyricke Congratulatory" , which was published in 1601 in the folio edition of his works. Later, “Poetical Epistles” were added to his patrons and a “Defense of Rime” (1603), directed against Thomas Campion , who claimed in a pamphlet that rhymes were unsuitable for English. In contrast, Daniel praised the beauty and elegance of the English language in this poetological prose. In his verse treatise "Musophilus, or a General Defense of Learning" , he had already emphasized the civilizing power of the English language in 1599 and emphasized the key role of literary education and cultural refinement for social development.

At court he also worked as an author, primarily of mask games ( masques ) or shepherds' plays , for which he became "Master of the Queen's Revels" in 1603 . "The vision of the twelve goddesses" (1604), "The Queen's Arcadia" (1606, a shepherd's play based on Guarini's "Pastor Fido" ), and " Thety 's Festival or the Queen 's " were printed from his games performed at court Wake " (1610, on the occasion of the appointment of the Prince of Wales, Henry Frederick, a knight of the Garter ) and " Hymen's triumphs " (1615) on the occasion of the marriage of Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe. In the pastoral dramas “The Queen's Arcadia” and “Hymen's Triumph” , first performed in 1605 and 1614 , Daniel followed Tasso as before in his sonnets .

In addition, he worked as an assistant censor (a kind of auxiliary censor) for the Master of the Revels , who as court official was responsible for the approval of theaters and the licenses for theater performances or masked games. In 1605 his "Certain small poems" appeared with his tragedy Philotas (for which he was quoted after a performance in 1604 before the Privy Council , as a figure resembled the high traitor Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex , executed in 1601 ). In 1612 the first publication of his historical work "History of England, from the earliest times down to the end of the reign of Edward III. " , Which he completed in 1618.

Honored by other court offices ( Gentleman Extraordinary, Groom of the Chamber to Queen Anne ) he was considered one of the leading poets of his time. From time to time he retired to his home in St Luke to write, where friends such as the poets William Shakespeare, John Selden and George Chapman visited him. At the end of his life he retired to a farm called "The Ridge" in Beckington, Somerset, near Devizes . He died there on October 14, 1619 and was buried in the cemetery of St. George's Church in Beckington. His former pupil, Lady Anne Clifford, had a memorial erected in the church for the “outstanding poet and historiographer” ( “that excellent poet and historian” ).

Daniel's reputation had not faded in the 18th century and was still lauded by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb , but was increasingly fading into the background in the 19th century. His sonnets were most likely to be read. His collected works were edited by Alexander Balloch Grosart from 1885 to 1896 . A new edition at Oxford University Press is planned.

Work edition

  • Samuel Daniel: The Complete Works . Edited by Alexander Balloch Grosart. 5 volumes, London 1885, New York 1963.

literature

  • Joan Rees: Samuel Daniel: A Critical and Biographical Study. Liverpool University Press, 1964.
  • James L. Harner: Samuel Daniel and Michael Drayton: A Reference Guide. Boston (Mass.) 1980.
  • David Ian Galbraith: Architectonics of Imitation in Spenser, Daniel, and Drayton. University of Toronto Press, 2000.

Web links

Wikiquote: Samuel Daniel  Quotes
Wikisource: Daniel, Samuel (DNB00)  - Sources and full texts (English)

Remarks

  1. ↑ Cf. Annette Simonis: Daniel, Samuel. In: Eberhard Kreutzer, Ansgar Nünning (Hrsg.): Metzler Lexicon of English-speaking authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 145. See also Samuel Daniel . On: Poetry Foundation, accessed July 20, 2015.
  2. ↑ Some of the poems were previously reprinted in Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" without permission . In Delia, a poet residing in Italy celebrates Delia, who lives on the River Avon in Wiltshire .
  3. ↑ Cf. Annette Simonis: Daniel, Samuel. In: Eberhard Kreutzer, Ansgar Nünning (Hrsg.): Metzler Lexicon of English-speaking authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 145.
  4. ↑ See Samuel Daniel . On: Poetry Foundation, accessed July 20, 2015.
  5. ↑ Cf. Annette Simonis: Daniel, Samuel. In: Eberhard Kreutzer, Ansgar Nünning (Hrsg.): Metzler Lexicon of English-speaking authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , pp. 145f. See also Samuel Daniel . On: Poetry Foundation, accessed July 20, 2015.
  6. ↑ The letter to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, contains the first use of the "terza rima" introduced by Dante in English.
  7. ↑ Cf. Annette Simonis: Daniel, Samuel. In: Eberhard Kreutzer, Ansgar Nünning (Hrsg.): Metzler Lexicon of English-speaking authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 146.
  8. ↑ Cf. Annette Simonis: Daniel, Samuel. In: Eberhard Kreutzer, Ansgar Nünning (Hrsg.): Metzler Lexicon of English-speaking authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01746-X , p. 145.
  9. ↑ See Samuel Daniel . On: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  10. ↑ Samuel Daniel . From: Poetry Foundation, accessed July 20, 2015. See also Sidney Lee: Daniel, Samuel . In: Dictionary of National Biography , 1885-1900, Volume 14, p. 25, London 1888, available on
    Wikisource: Daniel, Samuel (DNB00)  - Sources and full texts (English)
    .
  11. ↑ See Samuel Daniel . On: findagrave.com. Retrieved July 22, 2015. See also Samuel Daniel . On: Poetry Foundation, accessed July 21, 2015.
  12. ↑ Lamb published an excerpt from "Hymen's Triumph" in his "Dramatic Poets" .
personal data
SURNAME Daniel, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1562
PLACE OF BIRTH at Taunton , Somerset
DATE OF DEATH October 14, 1619
Place of death Beckington