George Wither

George Wither

George Wither , also Withers, (born June 11, 1588 in Bentworth , Hampshire , † May 2, 1667 in London ) was an English poet.

Life

George Wither studied from 1604 in Oxford ( Magdalen College ), but left the university in 1606 without a degree. From 1610 he was in London and was admitted to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1615. He became known through several poems, some of them following Edmund Spenser . For his satirical poem on the sins of arrogance, avarice, lust ( Abuses Stript and Whipt , 1613) he was in prison for a few months in 1614 (one of the poems contained an attack on the Lord Chancellor, although it was not named). In prison he wrote The Shepherd's Hunting , which appeared in 1615 and is known for a position in praise of poetry, and in 1615 - the first literary work to be subscribed - his love story Fidelia appeared with (in later editions 1617 and 1619) one of his most famous poems, Shall I wasting in despair . In 1621 his satirical Wither's motto appeared: Nec habeno, nec careo, nec curo (Wither's motto: I have nothing, I don't want anything, I don't care), which was very successful and for which he was imprisoned again.

He later turned to Puritan religious subjects and he sided with the Republicans in the Civil War, writing for these pamphlets. In 1623 his Hymns and Songs of the Church appeared , the first such work in English that was not based entirely on the Psalms and also the first work for which an author successfully registered copyright.

He processed his experiences of the plague in London of 1625 in his poem Britain's Remembrancer (published 1628). Another volume of religious poetry appeared in 1641 as Britain's Second Remembrancer . In 1635 he wrote the verses for an emblem book and in 1636 he translated On the Nature of Man by Nemesios of Emesa .

In 1639 he took part in the Episcopal Wars as a captain on the side of the king and was also a soldier on the side of the parliamentary forces in the civil war. He was entrusted with the defense of Farnham Castle but left the site with his neighboring property looted and captured by royalists. He escaped execution on the intercession of Sir John Denham , who commented on the pardon by saying that he did not want to be considered England's worst poet even after Withers' death. Despite this episode, he was promoted to major and participated in the Siege of Gloucester (1643) and the Battle of Naseby (1645). In 1643 he was relieved of his command and his office as justice of the peace because of attacks on Richard Onslow, whom he held responsible for the defeat at Farnham. From 1649 he was one of those who were to list and estimate the estate of King Charles I in preparation for an auction. At the beginning of the Stuart Restoration (1660) he was imprisoned for three years.

literature

• Stephen Bardle: The Literary underground in the 1660s. Andrew Marvell, George Wither, Ralph Wallis, and the world of restoration satire and pamphleteering . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-966085-8 .
• Charles Stanley Hensley: The later career of George Wither (= Studies in English literature , Vol. 43). Mouton, The Hague 1969.
• William Bridges Hunter: The English Spenserians. The poetry of Giles Fletcher, George Wither, Michael Drayton, Phineas Fletcher, and Henry More . University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City 1977, ISBN 0-87480-110-9 .
• Ingrid Mitterecker, Christian Mitterecker: Allerleisieben. Devil's tale. With 49 emblems from the "Collection of Emblems, Ancient and Modern" organized by George Wither in 1635 . Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra 2012, ISBN 978-3-99028-166-6 .
• Michelle O'Callaghan: Wither, George (1588–1667) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2004.
• Irma Tramer: Studies on the Beginnings of the Puritan Emblem Literature in England. Andrew Willet - George Wither . Diss., University of Basel 1934.

Web links

• Encyclopedia Britannica
• Biography at Allpoetry