George Gascoigne

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For the 19th-century writer who used "George Gascoigne" as a pseudonym, see William Sharp (writer).

George Gascoigne portrait from the frontispiece of The Steele Glas and Complaynte of Phylomene (1576)

George Gascoigne (c. 1535 – 7 October 1577) was an English poet, soldier and unsuccessful

Shakespeare as a source for The Taming of the Shrew;[3]
the frequently anthologised short poem "Gascoignes wodmanship" (1573) and "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English" (1575), the first essay on English versification.[4]

Early life

The eldest son of Sir John Gascoigne of

atheist
.

His poems, with the exception of some

Lord Mayor, but the matter was probably settled in a friendly manner, for Gascoigne continued to hold the Breton Walthamstow
estate, which he had from his wife, until his death.

Plays at Gray's Inn

Gascoigne translated two plays performed in 1566 at

Phoenissae, but appears more directly as a translation from the Italian of Lodovico Dolce's Giocasta.[6]

A Hundreth Sundry Flowres (1573) and Posies of Gascoigne (1575)

Gascoigne's best known and controversial work was originally published in 1573 under the title A Hundreth Sundry Flowres bound up in one small Poesie. Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of

Ariosto
and others; and partly by Invention out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande, Yelding Sundrie Savours of tragical, comical and moral discourse, bothe pleasaunt and profitable, to the well-smelling noses of learned readers, by London printer Richarde Smith. The book purports to be an anthology of courtly poets, gathered and edited by Gascoigne and two other editors known only by the initials "H.W." and "G.T." The book's content is throughout suggestive of courtly scandal, and the aura of scandal is skilfully elaborated through the effective use of initials and posies—Latin or English tags supposed to denote particular authors—in place of the real names of actual or alleged authors.

Judged to be offensive, the book was "seized by Her Majesty's High Commissioners."[7] Gascoigne republished the book with certain additions and deletions two years later under the alternative title, The Posies of George Gascoigne, Esquire. The new edition contains three new dedicatory epistles, signed by Gascoigne, which apologise for the offence that the original edition had caused. This effort failed, however, as the book was also ruled offensive and likewise seized.

At war in the Netherlands

When Gascoigne sailed as a

William of Orange, who had personally intervened on his behalf in a quarrel with his colonel, and secured him against the suspicion caused by his clandestine visits to a lady at the Hague
.

Thomas Purfoot

Taken prisoner after the evacuation of

Elizabeth, and was present at a reading of the Pleasant Tale of Hemetes the Hermit, a brief romance, probably written by the queen's host, Sir Henry Lee. At the queen's annual gift exchange with members of her court the following New Year's, Gascoigne gave her a manuscript of Hemetes which he had translated into Latin, Italian, and French. Its frontispiece shows the Queen rewarding the kneeling poet with an accolade and a purse; its motto, "Tam Marti, quam Mercurio", indicates that he will serve her as a soldier, as a scholar-poet, or as both. He also drew three emblems, with accompanying text in the three other languages.[8] He also translated Jacques du Fouilloux's La Venerie (1561) into English as The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hunting (1575) which was printed together with George Turberville
's The Book of Falconrie or Hawking and is thus sometimes misattributed to Turberville though in fact it was a work by Gascoigne.

Later writings and influences

Most of his works were published during the last years of his life after his return from the wars. He died in Stamford in Lincolnshire on 7 October 1577 and was buried on 13 October in the graveyard of St Mary's Church, Stamford.[9]

Gascoigne's theory of metrical composition is explained in a short critical treatise, "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati," prefixed to his Posies (1575). He acknowledged Chaucer as his master, and differed from the earlier poets of the school of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Thomas Wyatt chiefly in the greater smoothness and sweetness of his verse.

See also

  • Canons of Elizabethan poetry
  • Good Morrowe, poem by Gascoigne set to music by Sir Edward Elgar, 1929
  • Gillian Austen, George Gascoigne [Studies in Renaissance Literature, 24], D.S. Brewer, 2008
  • G.W. Pigman, George Gascoigne, A Hundredth Sundrie Flowres 1573, Oxford, 2000
  • Ronald Binns, Gascoigne: The Life of a Tudor Poet, York: Zoilus Press, 2021
    ISBN 9781999735944

Notes

  1. ^ May, Steven. "Early Courtier Verse: Oxford, Dyer, and Gascoigne" in Early Modern English Poetry, Patrick Cheney, et al, eds. New York: Oxford UP, 2007, pp. 60–9; 61.
  2. ^ Hamrick, Stephen. "‘Set in portraiture’: George Gascoigne, Queen Elizabeth, and Adapting the Royal Image". Early Modern Literary Studies 11.1 (May 2005).
  3. ^ The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21) Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One. http://www.bartleby.com/215/0521.html
  4. ^ Austen, Gillian. "Self-portraits and Self-presentation in the Work of George Gascoigne". Early Modern Literary Studies 14.1/Special Issue 18 (May 2008).
  5. ^ a b "Gascoigne, George (GSCN555G)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  6. ^ Cunliffe, Supposes; The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. by Margaret Drabble, 5th edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), s.v. "Gascoige, George".
  7. ^ Hughes, Felicity A. "Gascoigne's Poses." SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, vol. 37, no. 1, 1997, pp. 1-19, https://www.jstor.org/stable/450770
  8. ^ Hamrick, "'Set in Portraiture'"
  9. ^ Ronald Binns, Gascoigne: The Life of a Tudor Poet (York: Zoilus Press, 2021), p. 470.

References

  • Cunliffe, John W. George Gascoigne: The Posies. (originally published 1907, reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1969).
  • Cunliffe, John. W. Supposes and Jocasta: Two Plays Translated from the Italian, the first by Geo. Gascoigne and the second by Geo. Gascoigne and F. Kwinwelmersh (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1906).
  • Prouty, C.T. George Gascoigne's A Hundredth Sundrie Flowres. (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1942).
  • Ward, B.M. A Hundredth Sundrie Flowres From the Original Edition of 1573. (1928; reprinted with supplementary materials under the editorship of Ruth Loyd Miller, Minos Publish Co., 1975).
Attribution

External links

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