Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era, continuing to write through the reign of James I and into the reign of Charles I. Many of his works consisted of historical poetry. He was also the first English-language author to write odes in the style of Horace. He died on 23 December 1631 in London.
Early life
Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England in early 1563. Not much is documented about his early life, except that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham, Nottinghamshire. In his early years, it is believed that Drayton entered the service of Sir Henry Goodere, who provided for Drayton's education. Nineteenth- and 20th-century scholars, on the basis of scattered allusions in his poems and dedications, suggested that Drayton might have studied at the University of Oxford, and been intimate with the Polesworth branch of the Goodere family. More recent work has cast doubt on those speculations, suggesting that it is more likely Drayton's "social status was inferior to that of William Shakespeare and well below that of Edmund Spenser or Samuel Daniel, both of whom obtained university degrees".
Literary career
1590–1602
In 1590, he produced his first book, The Harmony of the Church, a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated to Lady Devereux. It is notable for a version of the Song of Solomon, executed with considerable richness of expression. However, with the exception of forty copies, seized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the whole edition was destroyed by public order. Nevertheless, Drayton published a vast amount within the next few years.
In 1593, appeared Idea: The Shepherd's Garland, a collection of nine pastorals, in which he celebrated his personal love-sorrows under the pseudonim of Rowland. Drayton then produced two further 'Ideas': a cycle of 51 sonnets entitled Ideas Mirrour (1594, expanded and revised as Idea in several versions from 1599 to 1619), by which we learn that the lady lived by the river Ankor in Warwickshire, and an epyllion, Endimion and Phoebe: Ideas Latmus (1595).
This has led to the notion that he failed to win his "Idea", and lived and died a bachelor, one of a series of biographical interpretations of the poems that Jean Brink sees as "romantic flourishes".
It has been said Drayton's sonnets possess a direct, instant and universal appeal because of their simple straightforward ring and foreshadowing of the smooth style of Fairfax, Waller and Dryden. Drayton was the first to bring the term ode, for a lyrical poem, to popularity in England and was a master of the short, staccato Anacreontics measure.
Also in 1593 there appeared the first of Drayton's historical poems, The Legend of Piers Gaveston, and the next year saw the publication of Matilda, an epic poem in rhyme royal. It was about this time, too, that he brought out Endimion and Phoebe, a volume which he never republished, but which contains some interesting autobiographical matter, and acknowledgments of literary help from Thomas Lodge, if not from Edmund Spenser and Samuel Daniel also. In his Fig for Momus, Lodge reciprocated these friendly courtesies.
In 1596, Drayton published his long and important poem Mortimeriados, a very serious production in ottava rima. He later enlarged and modified this poem, and republished it in 1603 under the title of The Barons' Wars. In 1596 also appeared another historical poem, The Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandy, with which Piers Gaveston was reprinted. In 1597 appeared England's Heroical Epistles, a series of historical studies, in imitation of those of Ovid. These last poems, written in the heroic couplet, contain some of the finest passages in Drayton's writings.