Matthew Roydon
Matthew Roydon , also Mathew Roydon, Royden, († 1622 ) was an English poet.
Roydon studied at Oxford University with a master's degree in 1580. Soon afterwards he was part of a literary circle in London and known with leading poets such as Philip Sidney (to whom he dedicated his elegy, or Friends passion for his Astrophil , at Sidney's Tod), Christopher Marlowe , Edmund Spenser , Thomas Lodge and George Chapman . Other than his elegy for Sidney (which Thomas Nashe cites in 1587 when he honored him as a capable poet in London), little is known of him (poems in the Sonnets by Thomas Watson of 1581 and in True Reporte by Sir George Peckham of 1583) .
He is sometimes counted among the freethinkers around Walter Ralegh ( School of Night ) and Christopher Marlowe. Chapman dedicated Shadow of Night (1594) and Ovid's Banquet of Sens (1595) to him.
Later (around 1609) he was in the service of the patron of writers Robert Radclyffe, 5th Earl of Sussex . At the end of his life he became impoverished and appears in an alms list of the actor Edward Alleyn (1618, 1622).
He is not to be confused with Matthew Roydon, the contemporary canon of St. Paul's Cathedral.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Roydon, Matthew |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Roydon, Mathew |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | before 1580 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1622 |