Phineas Fletcher

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Phineas Fletcher (born 1582 ; died 1650 ) was an English poet and clergyman. He is the eldest son of the poet and diplomat Giles Fletcher the Elder , brother of the cleric and poet Giles Fletcher the Younger, and the cousin of the playwright John Fletcher .

life and work

Phineas Fletcher was born in 1582. He studied in Cambridge at King's College .

The pastorals left by Fletcher , especially the Piscatory Eclogues ( fishermen's idylls ), in which the characters are depicted as fishermen's boys on the banks of the River Cam , throw an interesting light on the poet and his father (embodied in the characters Thyrsil and Thelgon). His famous works include The Purple Iceland, or the Isle of Man ( The Purple Island or people Island ), a poem in twelve Cantos that as cumbersome allegory the physiological structure of the human body and the mind of man describes. In this major work he imitated the style of Edmund Spenser (around 1552–1599). In 1627 Phineas Fletcher published the Jesuit satire Locustae, vel Pietas Jesuitica (The Locusts or Apollyonists), two parallel poems in Latin and English, with a savage attack on the Jesuits . Herbert Ellsworth Cory (1883–1947) described the influence of the Fletchers in his work on Spenser, the School of the Fletchers, and Milton as follows:

"The influence of the Fletchers was far greater than has generally been realized. They founded a distinct school of poetry which outlived the chilling influence of the restoration. Even in the eighteenth century the school survived in the work of William Thompson, one of the earliest definite romanticists of that period. In Milton's day, most of the Cantabrigians , Crashaw , Joseph Beaumont, Thomas Robinson, and others, wrote more or less in their manner. In his boyhood Milton was enlisted in the School of the Fletchers and their influence is traceable even in his mature poems. Any study of Spenserian material in Milton, then, should include an elaborate examination of the work of the School of the Fletchers. "

Friedrich Bouterweck (1766–1828) describes the poet of the Fischeridyllen and the Purpurinsel as a “poet of fine feeling and not common imagination, admittedly far removed from the exemplary in the invention, the thoughts and the language, but worthwhile, torn from oblivion to become".

An edition of the complete works of Phineas Fletcher ( The poems of Phineas Fletcher, for the first time collected and edited: with memoir, essay, and notes ) in four volumes was privately printed by Alexander B. Grosart (1827–1899) (The Fuller Worthies' Library, 1869). A standard work is considered to be on the poetic works of Giles and Phineas Fletcher ( The Poetical Works of Giles and Phineas Fletcher ) by Frederick S. Boas (1862–1957) in the Cambridge English Classics series .

His works have been included in well-known collections of English poets such as Robert Anderson ( British Poets ) and Alexander Chalmers ( The Works of the English Poets ).

Works (selection)

  • The Purple Island, or the Isle of Man.
  • Locustae, vel pietas Jesuitica.
  • Piscatory Eclogues. Edinburgh, 1771 ( archive.org ).
  • Sicelides.
  • De literatis antiquae Britanniae.

literature

  • Sidney Lee:  Fletcher, Phineas . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 19:  Finch - Forman. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London, 1889, pp 316 - 317 (English).
  • Frederick S. Boas (Eds.): Giles and Phineas Fletcher: The poetical Works. 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press 1908, 1909, Cambridge English Classics ( archive.org ).
  • Fletcher, Phineas . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 10 : Evangelical Church - Francis Joseph I . London 1910, p. 499 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Fletcher, Phineas . In: John Venn , John Archibald Venn (eds.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 1: From the earliest times to 1751 , volume 2 : Dabbs-Juxton . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1922, pp. 150 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Fletcher, Phineas and Giles. I: Donald Cheney, Albert Charles Hamilton (Eds.): The Spenser Encyclopedia. University of Toronto Press 1997, pp. 308 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search)

Web links

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ To the envoy of Queen Elizabeth of England in Moscow and author of Of the Russe Common Wealth ( archive.org of the edition in the book series of the Hakluyt Society ).
  2. ↑ On the English Spenserians, cf. the work of 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 .
  3. ^ Herbert Ellsworth Cory: Spenser, the School of the Fletchers, and Milton. In: University of California Publications in Modern Philology 2 (Supplement 5), 1912, pp. 311–373, there p. 314 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Friedrich Ludewig Bouterweck: History of poetry and eloquence since the end of the thirteenth century . Seventh volume. Göttingen 1809, p. 376 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
  5. ↑ Volume 1: 1908 archive.org ; Volume 2: 1908 archive.org .
  6. ^ The Works of the English Poets. ( Text archive - Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Fletcher, Phineas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fletcher, Phinehas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English poet and clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH 1582
DATE OF DEATH 1650