Poet, born in Hartshill, Warwickshire, C England, UK. His earliest work was The Harmony of the Church (1591), a metrical rendering of scriptural passages, which gave offence to the authorities, and was condemned to be destroyed. His best-known works are England's Heroical Epistles (1597), Poly-Olbion (161222), an ambitious description of the English countryside, and the celebrated sonnet Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part, from the sequence Idea (1619).
Michael Drayton (1563 – December 23, 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.
Biography
Early life
He was born at Hartshill, near Atherstone, Warwickshire. Drayton fell in love with Goodere's daughter, and this may have inspired some of his love poetry. For several years Drayton was esquire to Sir Walter Aston.
Literary career
In 1591 he produced his first book, The Harmony of the Church, a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated to Lady Devereux. 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 own love-sorrows under the poetic name of Rowland. In 1593 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 1596 Drayton published his long and important poem of Mortimerades, which deals with the Wars of the Roses and is 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. These last poems, written in the heroic couplet, contain some of the finest passages in Drayton's writings.
By 1597, the poet was resting on his laurels. In 1605 Drayton reprinted his most important works, that is to say, his historical poems and the Idea, in a single volume which ran through eight editions during his lifetime.
He had adopted as early as 1598 the extraordinary resolution of celebrating all the points of topographical or antiquarian interest in the island of Great Britain, and on this laborious work he was engaged for many years. At last, in 1613, the first part of this vast work was published under the title of Poly-Olbion, eighteen books being produced, to which the learned Selden supplied notes. The success of this great work, which has since become so famous, was very small at first, and not until 1622 did Drayton succeed in finding a publisher willing to undertake the risk of bringing out twelve more books in a second part.
In 1627 he published another of his miscellaneous volumes, and this contains some of his most characteristic and exquisite writing. It consists of the following pieces: The Battle of Agincourt, an historical poem in ottava rima (not to be confused with his ballad on the same subject), and The Miseries of Queen Margaret, written in the same verse and manner; The Quest of Cinthia and The Shepherd's Sirena, two lyrical pastorals; Of these Nimphidia is perhaps the best thing Drayton ever wrote, except his famous ballad on the battle of Agincourt;
The last of Drayton's voluminous publications was The Muses' Elizium in 1630.
Like other poets of his era, Drayton was active in writing for the theater; For a period of only five years, from 1597 to 1602, Drayton was a member of the stable of playwrights who supplied material for the theatrical syndicate of Philip Henslowe. Henslowe's Diary links Drayton's name with 23 plays from that period, and shows that Drayton almost always worked in collaboration with other Henslowe regulars, like Thomas Dekker, Anthony Munday, and Henry Chettle, among others. Of these 23 plays, only one has survived, that being Part 1 of Sir John Oldcastle, which Drayton composed in collaboration with Munday, Robert Wilson, and Richard Hathwaye. The text of Oldcastle shows no clear signs of Drayton's hand; William Longsword, the one play that Henslowe's Diary suggests was a solo Drayton effort, was never completed.
(Drayton may have preferred the role of impressario to that of playwright; Around 1606, Drayton was also part of a syndicate that chartered a company of child actors, The Children of the King's Revels. These may or may not have been the Children of Paul's under a new name, since the latter group appears to have gone out of existence at about this time. The venture was not a success, dissolving in litigation in 1609.)
Friendships
Drayton was a friend of some of the most famous men of the age. There is a tradition that he was a friend of Shakespeare, supported by a statement of John Ward, once vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, that "Shakespear, Drayton and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted." In one of his poems, an elegy or epistle to Mr Henry Reynolds, he has left some valuable criticisms on poets whom he had known. Drayton was also a contemporary of John Donne, though it is not known if Drayton and Donne ever knew each other.
Critical legacy
The works of Drayton are bulky, and, in spite of the high place that he holds in critical esteem, it cannot be pretended that he is much read. His historical poems, which he was constantly rewriting and improving, are believed by many to be much more interesting, and often rise to a true poetic eloquence.
Most literary scholars believe that his pastorals are brilliant, but overladen with colour and sweet to insipidity. Drayton, however, approaches the very first poets of the Elizabethan era in his charming Nimphidia, a poem which inspired Robert Herrick with his sweet fairy fancies and stands alone of its kind in English literature;
Editions
In 1748 a folio edition of Drayton's complete works was published under the editorial supervision of William Oldys, and again in 1753 there appeared an issue in four volumes.
A complete edition of Drayton's works with variant readings was projected by Richard Hooper in 1876, but was never carried to a conclusion;
A complete five volume edition of Drayton's work was published by Oxford in 1961, edited by J. That and a two volume edition of Drayton's poems published at Harvard in 1953, edited by John Buxton, are the only 20th century editions of his poems recorded by the Library of Congress.
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