Edward Dyer

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Edward Dyer (born October 1543 in Sharpham Park, Glastonbury , Somerset , † May 1607 in London ) was a British poet and courtier.

Dyer studied at Balliol College of University of Oxford , was some time abroad and then at the court of Queen Elizabeth I . (occupied from 1566) under the patronage of Robert Dudley . There he was friends with Philip Sidney , who left his books to him and Fulke Greville in his will. He wrote an elegy on his death in 1586. With Gabriel Harvey , Edmund Spenser and Sidney he belonged to a loose group of poets (sometimes referred to as Areopagus). He was sent by the Queen on a diplomatic mission to the Netherlands in 1584 and to Denmark in 1589. His favor at court fluctuated greatly (Oldys wrote in his diary that Dyer would not be among those who would ingratiate himself at court). In 1596 he was ennobled and knight of the Order of the Garter. In 1590 he was arrested in Prague while studying alchemy there. John Aubrey writes in his Letter Lives that he was a follower of John Dee and Edward Kelley and that he used up a considerable part of his fortune in alchemical experiments. He fell into oblivion under Jacob I and there is hardly any news of him from this time. He was buried on May 11, 1607 at St. Saviors in Southwark (London).

He had a great reputation as a poet among his contemporaries, but few of his poems have survived. Formerly he was almost unanimously attributed the poem My mind to me a kingdom is , set to music by William Byrd (Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs, 1588). It addresses self-sufficiency and inner values. Since he only published anonymously or under initials, this is not the only work in which an attribution to him is uncertain or incorrect. Even his contemporaries had problems with attributions, almost all of the poems ascribed to him in England's Helicon from 1600 are by Thomas Lodge . A translation of Idyllen by Theocritus found in manuscript form in the Bodleian Library in Oxford in the 19th century was not made by him but was dedicated to him.

Alexander B. Grosart published a collection of his poems in 1872.

literature

  • Ralph Sargant: At the Court of Queen Elizabeth: The Life and Lyrics of Edward Dyer, Oxford University Press 1935
  • Steven May: The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: Their Poems and Their Contexts, University of Missouri Press, 1991.
  • Steven W. May: Dyer, Sir Edward (1543-1607), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , online 2004 edition

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ He would never fawn or crine at court , according to the older Dictionary of National Biography
  2. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica , online edition. Retrieved September 14, 2015
  3. ↑ In doing so, he refers to a descendant and also writes that he was a supporter of the Rosicrucians, which only came up later
  4. ↑ After Steven May, The Authorship of My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is, Renaissance English Studies, New Series, Volume 26, 1975, pp. 385-394, possibly by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
personal data
SURNAME Dyer, Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 1543
PLACE OF BIRTH at Glastonbury
DATE OF DEATH May 1607
Place of death London