Bartholomew Griffin
Bartholomew Griffin , (BG) († 1602?) Was an English poet of the Elizabethan era .
Life
No secured data is known about his life.
Works
Griffin is known for his volume of poetry " Fidessa, more chaste than kinde ", printed in 1596 , consisting of 62 sonnets (in the same form as Shakespeare's sonnets ). No other work is known under the name of Bartholomew Griffin during the Elizabethan period. The third sundet from Fidessa , beginning with ' Venus and yong Adonis sitting by her ,' was reprinted in 1599 in The Passionate Pilgrime by William Shakespeare.
Meaning of the sonnets
The sonnets express a poet's complaint about his fate, about his banishment and about the loss of his identity.
- Sonnet 13:
- Compare me to the child that plays with fire,
- Or to the fly that dieth in the flame,
- Or to the foolish boy that did aspire
- To touch the glory of high heaven's frame;
- Compare me to Leander struggling in the waves,
- Not able to attain his safety's shore,
- Or to the sick that do expect their graves,
- Or to the captive crying evermore;
- Compare me to the weeping wounded hart,
- Moaning with tears the period of his life,
- Or to the boar that will not feel his smart
- When he is stricken with the butcher's knife:
- No man to these can fitly me compare;
- These live to die, I die to live in care.
literature
- Ernest P. Kuhl, Shakspere and The Passionate Pilgrim, Modern Language Notes 1919
- John P. Cutts, Two Hitherto Unpublished Settings of Sonnets from the Passionate Pilgrime, Shakespeare Quarterly, 1958
- B. Conrad, Christopher Marlowe, the real Shakespeare. Book and Media, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86520-374-8
Web links
Bartholomew Griffin "Fidessa" 1596
George Wither, A collection of Emblems 1635
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Griffin, Bartholomew |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 16th Century |
| DATE OF DEATH | uncertain: 1602 |