Thomas d'Urfey

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Illustration from Sabine Baring-Gould: Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.

Thomas d'Urfey , also called Tom Durfey (born 1653 in Exeter , Devon ; died February 26, 1723 in London ), was an English author, poet, playwright , songwriter and satirist . He probably wrote under the pseudonym Gabriel John .

Life

D'Urfey was the son of John Durfey and his wife Frances, French refugees who belonged to the Huguenots . At first he planned to study law, but decided otherwise. In 1683 he added an apostrophe to his name to suggest a noble descent.

He was a prolific writer and served as a fool , singer, and entertainer at the court of King Charles II . His often satirical pieces mostly reflected the zeitgeist to the taste of the London audience. In 1676 he brought out the plays The Siege of Memphis , The Fond Husband and The Plotting Sisters , in 1677 Madame Fickle . A total of 31 or 32 dramas by him are known. However, he was valued for his poetry. Some of his songs were set to music by Henry Purcell , Thomas Farmer and John Blow , others were based on traditional Aires .

D'Urfey launched the New Collection of Songs and Poems , a collection of songs and poems , in 1683 . He wrote many of his songs from 1679 to 1680 in Scottish dialect for James II , who later was also King of England and Scotland. This resulted in a mixture of English popular melodies with those from Scotland; some of what came back to England as “made in Scotland” is said to have come from there originally.

His songs were published in six volumes under the title Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy . In the 1719 edition, the songs in the first two volumes are by himself, while others are based on folk ballads, the texts of which he changed. The melodies of his songs were similar to those he knew from his youth in Devonshire.

Works (selection)

  • Siege of Memphis. 1676.
  • Madame Fickle. 1677.
  • Virtuous Wife. 1680.
  • The Night Her Blackest Sable Wore. 1682 ( Wikisource ).
  • New Collection of Songs and Poems. 1683.
  • Love for money; or The Boarding School. 1691.
  • The Marriage-Hater Match'd. 1692.
  • The Comical History of Don Quixote in three parts. 1694, 1694, 1696.
  • The Campaigners. 1698.
  • An Essay Towards the Theory of the Intelligible World. 1700, as Gabriel John.
  • Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. 1719 (Volume 1: archive.org , Volume 2: archive.org , Volume 3: archive.org , Volume 4: archive.org , Volume 5: archive.org , Volume 6: archive.org ).
  • Henry Purcell, Thomas D'Urfey: The comical history of Don Quixote. As it was acted at the Queen's Theater in Dorset Garden, by Their Majesties servants… London 1729 ( babel.hathitrust.org ).

literature

Web links

Commons : Thomas d'Urfey  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Thomas d'Urfey  - Author entry (English)

Individual evidence

  1. D'Urfey, Thomas . In: A Universal Biographical Dictionary. Containing the Lives of the Most Celebratd Characters of Every Age and Nation ... to which is Added, a Dictionary of the Principal Divinities and Heroes of Grecian and Roman Mythology, and a Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Living Characters . S. Andrus and Son, 1845, p. 168 ( books.google.de ).
  2. ^ TJ Carty (Ed.): A dictionary of literary pseudonyms in the English language . 2nd revised edition. Routledge, New York, ISBN 978-1-135-95578-6 , pp. 111 , John, Gabriel ( books.google.de ).
  3. ^ Alan Hager: Encyclopedia of British Writers, 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries . Infobase Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4381-0869-8 , pp. 131 ( books.google.de ).
  4. A New collections of songs and poems by Thomas D'Urfey. 1683 ( quod.lib.umich.edu ).