- William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised
3 March ,1606 –April 7 ,1668 ), also spelled D'Avenant, was an Englishpoet andplaywright . Along withThomas Killigrew , Davenant was one of the rare figures inEnglish Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras, and who was active both before and after theEnglish Civil War and the Interregnum.Biography
Davenant is believed to have been born in late February, 1606 in
Oxford , the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Davenant, proprietor of the Crown Tavern (or Crown Inn) and mayor of Oxford. He was baptised on3 March , hisgodfather beingWilliam Shakespeare , who had stayed frequently at the Crown during his travels betweenLondon andStratford-upon-Avon . It was even rumored that he was the Bard's biological son as well. However, it seems that this rumor stemmed from a comment attributed to Davenant by Samuel Butler: "It seemed to him [Davenant] that he writ with the very same spirit that Shakespeare [did] , and seemed content enough to be called his son."He attended
Lincoln College, Oxford , for a while in about 1620, but left before gaining any degree.Following the death of
Ben Jonson in 1637, Davenant was namedPoet Laureate in 1638. He was a supporter of King Charles I in theEnglish Civil War . In 1641, he was declared guilty of high treason but was, ironically, knighted two years later by the king following thebattle of Gloucester . He was then appointed Emissary to France in 1645 and treasurer of the colony ofVirginia in 1649 by Charles II. The following year, he was madelieutenant governor ofMaryland , but was captured at sea, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. He spent all of 1651 in theTower of London , where he was imprisoned at the time "Gondibert " was written. Having been released in 1652, he was only pardoned in 1654. In order to avoid the strict laws of censorship in force in all public places at the time, he turned a room of his home,Rutland House , into a private theatre where his works, and that of others considered seditious, could be performed. A performance of his "The Siege of Rhodes " at Rutland House in 1656 is considered to be the first performance of an Englishopera , and also included England's first known professionalactress , Mrs. Coleman. [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/1/2/4126/4126.txt]Davenant once again found himself in legal trouble in 1659, when he was imprisoned for his part in Sir George Booth's uprising at
Cheshire . He was released the same year though and fled to France. He had returned to England sometime before the initial production of his adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", written withJohn Dryden , who would be named the next Laureate in 1670.After suffering from
syphilis for nearly four decades, he died inLondon onApril 7 ,1668 , shortly after his final play, "The Man's the Master ", was first performed. He is buried inPoets' Corner atWestminster Abbey where the inscription on his tablet reads "O rare Sir William Davenant." It has been noted that the original inscription on Ben Jonson's tablet, which was already removed by the time Davenant died, was "Rare Ben," which was the name Shakespeare supposedly had for Jonson.Nine of his works, though they were previously licensed or produced in London during his life like all of his plays, were finally published in print posthumously. Several of these were included in "
The Works of Sr William D'avenant Kt. ", byHenry Herringman in 1673, which was copied from Davenant's own originals.Works
Epic poems and books of poetry
* "
Ieffereidos " (1630)
* "Madagascar, with other Poems " (1638)
* "London, King Charles his Augusta, or, City Royal, of the founders, the names, and oldest honours of that City " (1648)
* "A Discourse upon Gondibert, an heroick poem " (or simply "Gondibert ") (1650), which was originally published unfinished, but was published again in 1651 in its final form and included Davenant's "Preface to his most honour’d friend Mr. Hobs" and "The Answer of Mr. Hobbes to Sr Will. D’Avenant’s Preface before Gondibert" byThomas Hobbes , to whom the book was dedicated; the official second edition in 1653 also contained "Certain Verses, written by severall of the author’s friends"
* "" (1656)
* "Poems on Several Occasions" (1657)Panegyric s* "A Panegyric to his Excellency the Lord General Monck" (1660), to
George Monck
* "Poem upon his sacred Majesties most happy return to his dominions" (1660), on the Restoration of Charles II
* "Poem, to the King’s most sacred Majesty" (1663), to Charles IIOriginal plays,
masque s andopera s"Listed in chronological order."
* "Albovine, King of the Lombards ," tragedy (ca. 1626-9; printed 1629)
* "The Cruel Brother," tragedy (licensed Jan. 12, 1627; printed 1630)
* "The Just Italian ," comedy (licensed Oct. 2, 1629; printed 1630)
* "The Wits ," comedy (licensed Jan. 19, 1634; printed 1636)
* "Love and Honour ,"tragicomedy , also previously performed as "The Courage of Love"; and "The Nonpareilles", or "The Matchless Maids" (licensed Nov. 20, 1634: printed 1649)
* "The Temple of Love ," masque (licensed Feb. 10, 1635; printed 1635)
* "News from Plymouth ," comedy (licensed Aug. 1, 1635; printed 1673)
* "The Platonick Lovers ," comedy (licensed Nov. 16, 1635; printed 1636)
* "The Triumphs of the Prince D'Amour ," masque (performed Feb. 23 or 24, 1636; printed 1636)
* "Britannia Triumphans ," masque, withInigo Jones (licensed Jan. 8, 1638; printed 1638)
* "Luminalia " or "The Festival of Light," masque, with Inigo Jones (licensed Feb. 6, 1638; printed 1638)
* "The Unfortunate Lovers ," tragedy (licensed April 16, 1638; printed 1643)
* "The Fair Favourite ," tragicomedy (licensed Nov. 17, 1638; printed 1673)
* "The Spanish Lovers ," or "The Distresses," comedy (licensed March 30, 1639; printed 1673)
* "Salmacida Spolia ," masque (performed Jan. 21, 1640; printed 1640)
* "The Siege of Rhodes, Part I," tragicomedy (performed Sept. 1656; printed 1656)
* "The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru ," opera (performed and printed 1658)
* "The History of Sir Francis Drake ," history (performed 1658-9; printed1659)
* "The Siege of Rhodes, Part II," tragicomedy (ca. 1657-9; printed 1663)
* "The Playhouse to Be Let ," comedy (performed ca. Aug. 1663; printed 1673); includes "Sir Frances Drake" and "The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru"
* "The Man's the Master ," comedy (performed March 26, 1668; printed 1669)Revisions, adaptations and other productions for the stage
* "
The First Day's Entertainment at Rutland House ," a "disputation" (performed May 23, 1656; printed 1657)
* "The Law Against Lovers " (performed February 10, 1662, printed 1673), a version of "Measure for Measure " mixed with "Much Ado About Nothing "
* "Macbeth" (performed November 5, 1664; printed 1674), an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth "
* "Greene's Tu Quoque" (performed Sept. 12, 1667; lost), based upon the 1614 edition of John Cooke's "Greene's Tu Quoque Or, the Cittie Gallant", which had been made famous by the actor Thomas Greene's 1611 performance
* "The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island" (performed November 7, 1667, printed 1670), an adaptation withJohn Dryden of Shakespeare's "The Tempest
* "The Rivals" (c. 1664; printed 1668), a revision of "The Two Noble Kinsmen "References
* Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds., "The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama," Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1975.
External links
Biographical
* [http://www.theatredatabase.com/17th_century/sir_william_davenant.html Biography at TheatreDatabase.com]
* [http://www.theatrehistory.com/british/shakespeare028.html "Shakespeare and Mrs. Davenant"]
* [http://oldpoetry.com/author/Sir%20William%20Davenant Detailed biography at Oldpoetry.com]Poems and texts
* [http://www.poetry-archive.com/d/davenant_william.html Four poems at the Poetry Archive]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/105/index2.html Five poems from "Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of the 17th century" at Bartleby.com]
* [http://www.bartleby.com/101/index2c.html Three poems from "The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900" at Bartleby.com]
* [http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/tempest.html The complete text of Davenant and Dryden's adaptation of "The Tempest"]
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