Charles Sedley

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Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet

Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet (* 1639 ; † August 20, 1701 in Hampstead ) was a poet of the English Restoration period.

Life

The date of birth of the restoration poet and comedy writer Sir Charles Sedley is not known, all that is known is that he was baptized on March 5, 1639 in St. Clement Danes in the Strand, London. The Sedley family owned and operated in and around Southfleet, Kent. His grandfather, William Sedley, had already been raised to a Baronet , of Ailesford in the County of Kent , under James I on August 20, 1611 . Sir William is also considered to be the founder of the Sidleian Lectures of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. Charles was the youngest of nine children from the marriage of Sir John Sedley and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Savile . Only three sons, Henry, William and Charles, who were entitled to the title, survived their father, who died in 1638. But the older brothers also died early, so that Charles inherited the title of 5th baronet as early as 1656. Charles Sedley enjoyed his education at Wadham College , Oxford , which he left without a degree. The poet Walter Pope is considered a tutor.

At the age of 18 Sedley was married on February 9, 1657 to Katherine Savage, daughter of John Savage, 5th Earl Rivers . The couple lived in Great Queen Street, London. Sedley's brother William had previously married Katherine's sister Jane, but died in 1656. Charles Sedley's daughter Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester was born in December 1657. When his wife was later sent to a convent in Ghent due to her mental condition, Sedley was unable to obtain a divorce. His wife stayed in Ghent until her death in 1705. Around 1670 Sedley met Ann Ayscough (d. 1708), with whom he entered into a relationship. At the time, the poet lived in Bloomsbury Square. With Ann he had two illegitimate sons, William and Charles, who did not survive the father. The younger son, Charles, became William III shortly after the coronation. 1689 to the Knights defeated and 1702 for Baronet, of South Fleet in the County of Kent, collected and also had a son named Charles, who founded the branch of Sedley in Nottingham.

Sedley is one of the court wits at the court of Charles II.

When Cromwell's Commonwealth saw its final decline in 1660 , England received a rightful king again with the return of Charles II, who had previously been in exile in France . Under Charles II, cultural life at court flourished again and the theaters in particular were promoted. During the reign of Charles II, in addition to tragedy, the restoration comedy with its own distinctive character developed in particular . In a short time, a circle of courtiers formed around the sensual monarch, who was inclined to literature and art, who were to decisively shape the social and artistic ideal of the court for a quarter of a century. This circle of young, ambitious men, mostly of noble origin, made a name for itself as a group of court wits both because of the ideal of life that they propagated and lived, as well as because of their noteworthy literary activity. Members of this group were the recognized leaders in the fields of fashion and literary education. In addition to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Charles Sackville (later Earl of Dorset), John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave and Sir Carr Scroope, Sir Charles Sedley also belonged to this circle.

Like no other, apart from John Wilmot , the Earl of Rochester, he was harmed by the effects of a few excesses, so that his literary reputation, which he deserves, is still subordinate to the obscene aftertaste of these excesses. In June 1663, Sir Charles Sedley and two of his friends were embroiled in a particularly rough escapade which aroused great public offense. The drunken Wits had - at least largely - stripped of their clothes on the balcony of the Cock Tavern , and Sedley was delivering a parodic, blasphemous sermon to the indignant onlookers. The whole performance ended in a commotion. The incident earned Sedley a brief jail term and a fine.

Sedley's literary significance

Sedley's importance for his time goes far beyond a contribution to the transmission of scandalous escapades. So it was especially wit , especially in conversation, for whom his contemporaries praised him. So Sedley hides behind the Francophile Lisideus in John Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668).

In addition, Sedley himself was active in literature. He was particularly productive in the field of poetry, especially the popular songs in which all Court Wits expressed their understanding of art. The song was his synthesis of folk song naturalness, sensual sound and aesthetic game at the same time the artistic and life ideal of courtly society.

But Sedley's later lyrical works, particularly the satirical epigrams: or, Court Characters , took on an increasingly cynical tone. In the epigram To Nysus, for example, Sedley describes the function of satire, in particular the aggressive form of this genre: "Let us write Satyr then, and at our ease / Vex th'ill-natur'd Fools we cannot please" (The epigram first appeared in the Gentleman's Journal of Nov. 1692). Apart from the lyrical works, Sedley translated works by Ovid , Horace , Virgil , Martial and others. a. Latin authors and was also active in the field of drama. In addition to the adaptation of various tragedy material, it is the two dramas, the rather gallant piece The Mulberry Garden (1668) and the cynical, socially critical piece Bellamira: or, the Mistress (1687) that not only underline Sedley's dramatic talent, but also his satirical talent.

Sedley as a politician and patron

Another facet of Sedley's personality becomes particularly evident in the last decade of his life. From 1690 until his death, Sedley served as the envoy of his New Romney district to all of King William III. represented by convened parliaments. Some of his speeches on current political controversies (e.g. on the debate about the standing armies ) have been published and noted by his contemporaries.

In addition to the protection of other authors, it is above all the dimension of his political commitment that makes Sedley a socially active representative of aristocratic court society and gives him a place in the front row of the dazzling court wits.

Sedley died on August 20, 1701 in Hampstead and was buried on August 26 in the Church at Southfleet.

Works

  • Pompey the Great (1664); Adaptation and translation of Corneilles La mort de Pompée. (1644); Collaboration by Charles Sackville (later Earl of Dorset), Sidney Godolphin a. a.
  • The Mulberry Garden. (1668)
  • Antony and Cleopatra. (1677)
  • Bellamira: or, The Mistress. (1687); is based on Terence's eunuchus
  • Beauty the Conqueror: or, The Death of Marc Antony. (posthumous 1702); Revised material by Antony and Cleopatra
  • The Miscellaneous Works of the Honorable Sir Charles Sedley. (London, 1702).
  • The Works of the Honorable Sir Charles Sedley. 2 vols (London, 1722).

literature

  • Vivian de Sola Pinto: Sir Charles Sedley 1639-1701: A Study in the Life and Literature of the Restoration. London 1927.
  • Vivian de Sola Pinto: The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Sir Charles Sedley. 2 vols. London 1928.
  • Michael Benjamin Hudnall Jr .: Moral Design in the Plays of Sir Charles Sedley. University of Tennessee, Knoxville 1984.
  • Holger Hanowell: Sir Charles Sedley's "The Mulberry-Garden" (1668) and "Bellamira: or, The Mistress" (1687). An Old-Spelling Critical Edition with an Introduction and a Commentary. Frankfurt a. M. 2001.
  • Holger Hanowell: Dangerfield's Threats in Sedley's Bellamira. and an Italian Poem of the Sixteenth Century. In: Notes and Queries. 247.3 (2002), p. 352.

Individual evidence

  1. Vivian de Sola Pinto, Sir Charles Sedley, 1639-1701. A Study in the Life and Literature of the Restoration (London, 1927). James E. Gill, Sir Charles Sedley, Dictionary of Literary Biography: Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets , ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, Washington DC and London, 1993). The Registers of Wadham College, Oxford, From 1613 to 1719 , ed. Robert Barlow Gardiner, I (London, 1889), p. 213. See also the current entry by Harold Love in the Dictionary of National Biography .
  2. ^ John Harold Wilson: The Court Wits of the Restoration: An Introduction (Princeton, 1948).
  3. See Pinto, SEDLEY, pp. 61-67; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, Charles II, 1663-1664 , ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1862); Samuel Pepys, The Diary of Samuel Pepys ; eds Robert Latham and William Matthews. 11 vols (London, 1970-1983), Vol. 4, pp. 209-210.
  4. PEPYS, V, p. 288 and VIII, p. 71. Various authors dedicated their plays to Sir Charles Sedley, including Thomas Shadwell. See Dedication to A True Widow, The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell , ed. Montague Summers. 5 vols (London, 1927), III, p. 283. On the art of conversation in general, cf. Dieter A. Berger, The Art of Conversation in England 1660-1740: A Speech Phenomenon and Its Literary Form (Munich, 1978). Frank L. Huntley, "On the Persons in Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy ," in: Essential Articles for the Study of John Dryden , ed. HT Swedenberg Jr (Hamden, CO, 1966), pp. 83-90.
  5. ^ Gerd Stratmann : English aristocracy and classicistic poetry. A literature-sociological study (Nuremberg, 1965), pp. 93–94.
  6. Ken Robinson, Sedley and Cowley, Notes and Queries , 226 (1981), 51; Sarah Mason, Sedley, Cowley and Martial, Notes and Queries , 232, (1987), p. 327.
  7. Holger Hanowell, Sir Charles Sedley's The Mulberry-Garden (1668) and Bellamira: or, The Mistress (1687). An Old-Spelling Critical Edition with an Introduction and a Commentary (Frankfurt a. M., 2001).
  8. Pinto, SEDLEY, pp. 183-184 and 192-193. Lois G. Schwoerer, No Standing Armies! The Antiarmy Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England (Baltimore and London, 1974).
  9. See generally Dustin Griffin, Literary Patronage in England, 1650-1800 (Cambridge, 1996).
predecessor Office successor
William Sedley Baronet (of Ailesford)
1656-1701
Title expired