Thomas Shadwell
Thomas Shadwell (* around 1642 in Norfolk ; † November 19, 1692 in London ) was a British comedy poet of the Restoration period and from 1689 Poet Laureate . Shadwell studied at Cambridge University (Caius College) and completed a law degree at Middle Temple in London. After the Restoration (1660) he was a well-known intellectual in court circles.
He wrote 18 plays, including the shepherd's poem The Royal Shepherdess (1669) and the opera The enchanted island (after Shakespeare's Storm, 1674). He adapted Juvenal (The tenth Satyre, 1687) and Moliere ( The Sullen Lovers 1668, after Molieres Die Lästigen , The Miser 1671/72 after Molieres Der misanthrope ). His greatest success was Epsom-Wells (1672), a satire about London spa guests in the seaside resort of Epsom . His The Virtuoso (1676) was a satire on the Royal Society . In The Squire of Alsatia (1688) he describes the rogue milieu in the Whitefriars area in London.
Shadwell was originally friends with John Dryden , which ended in the political crisis surrounding the Exclusion Bill , in which Shadwell sided with the Whigs (and Dryden stayed with the king) and in The Lancashire Witches the Anglican clergy and the Roman Church attack. Dryden responded with the satires Absalom and Achitophel and Mac Flecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet (1682), a direct attack on Shadwell (whom he satirized as an untalented writer, the last great prophet of tautology ). Sometimes it also expressed a different view of the drama, Shadwell admired Ben Jonson , Dryden not. In the Glorious Revolution of 1688/89, in which the Whigs prevailed, Dryden lost his post as Poet Laureate and Court Historiographer and Shadwell was his successor.
He also wrote poems.
literature
Work editions:
- The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell . Ed. Montague Summers. 5 vols. London, 1927.
- The Virtuoso . Eds Majorie Hope Nicolson and David Stuart Rodes. London, 1966.
Secondary literature:
- Theodor Dopheide, "Satyr the true Medicine": Thomas Shadwell's comedies . Frankfurt, Bern, New York, and Paris, 1991.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ In it he describes Shadwell and Elkanah Settle as fools who, despite their bad verses, will be remembered thanks to his (Dryden's) poetry: Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse, who, by my muse, to all succeeding times, shall live , in spite of their own doggrel rhymes
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shadwell, Thomas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English playwright |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1642 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Norfolk |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 19, 1692 |
| Place of death | London |