George Sandys

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Portrait of George Sandys

George Sandys (born March 2, 1578 in Bishopthorpe Palace near York , † March 1644 in Boxley Abbey near Maidstone , Kent ) was an English traveler , colonist and poet .

Life

George Sandys was the seventh and youngest son of Edwin Sandys , Archbishop of York, and a younger brother of the English politician Edwin Sandys . He probably first attended St Peter's School in York and then from December 1589 St Mary Hall (Oxford) , but achieved no academic dignity. In 1610 he went on trips that first took him to France . From northern Italy he went via Venice to Constantinople , and from there to Egypt , Mount Sinai , Palestine , Cyprus , Sicily , and NaplesRome . The report of his travels in the Middle East , which, like all of his works , is dedicated to Charles I (either as Crown Prince or King), was published in 1615 under the title The Relation of a Journey begun in anno Domini 1610, in four books . Century nine editions. From the fifth edition of 1652, this report was titled Sandys Travailes . A German edition came out in 1669. The work contributed significantly to the expansion of the knowledge of geography and ethnology at that time.

Sandys was also interested in the early British colonization of America . In April 1621 he was promoted to colonial treasurer of the Virginia Company of London and sailed to Virginia with his niece's husband, Sir Francis Wyatt . Wyatt subsequently acted as the new governor of Virginia. When Virginia became a British crown colony, Sandys joined the board of directors there in August 1624 and was confirmed in this position in 1626 and 1628. In 1631 he applied in vain for the post of secretary of the new special commission for better plantation management in Virginia. Shortly after he returned permanently to England and was of Charles I falconer Gentleman of the appointed.

As early as 1621 Sandys had published an English partial translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses in Heroic Couplets , which he completed in 1626. In 1632 he published a revised edition. His reputation as a poet in the 17th and 18th centuries was mainly based on this work. He also began an adaptation of Virgil's Aeneid , but produced only one book of it. In 1636 he published his famous paraphrase upon the Psalms and Hymns dispersed throughout the Old and New Testament ; In 1640 he translated Grotius' Passion Christi from Latin ; and in 1641 he published his last work, a Paraphrase of the Song of Songs . He died unmarried in March 1644 at the age of 66 in Boxley Abbey near Maidstone.

Sandys pioneered the heroic couplets of John Dryden and Alexander Pope , both of whom extolled Sandys' poetry. John Milton relied heavily on Sandys' Hymn to my Redeemer in his Ode on the Passion , which is inserted in his travelogue in place of the description of his visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher .

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Sandys, George , in: Encyclopædia Britannica online.
personal data
SURNAME Sandys, George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English traveler, colonist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1578
PLACE OF BIRTH Bishopthorpe Palace near York
DATE OF DEATH March 1644
Place of death Boxley Abbey at Maidstone , Kent