Leonard Digges (writer)
Leonard Digges (
Life
Leonard Digges matriculated at
- Will Baker: Knowinge
- that Mr Mab: was to
- sende you this Booke
- of sonets, wch with Spaniards
- here is accounted of their
- lope de Vega as in Englande
- wee sholde of or: Will
- Shakespeare. I colde not
- but insert thus much to
- you, that if you like
- him not, you muste neuer
- neuer reade Spanishe Poet
- Leo:Digges[4]
Anthony à Wood said of Leonard Digges that he "was esteemed by those who knew him in Univ.coll. a great master of the English language, a perfect understander of the French and Spanish, a good poet, and no mean orator".[5] Wood says also that "upon his supplication made to the venerable convocation" of University College Oxford, Digges was made M.A. in 1626, "in consideration that he had spent many years in good letters in transmarine universities". He lived in the College from then until his death in 1635, and was buried in the College chapel (no longer standing).
Works
Digges translated Claudian's The Rape of Proserpine (printed 1617). His translation of Varia fortuna de soldado Píndaro, by Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, was published in 1622 as Gerardo, the Unfortunate Spaniard, and was used by John Fletcher as a source for his plays The Spanish Curate and The Maid in the Mill.
Digges's publisher was
References
- ^ a b Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. .
- ^ S.H. Steinberg, "Digges, Leonard," in: Cassell's Encyclopedia of World Literature, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1953.
- ^ A village about four miles south of Stratford.
- ^ Paul Morgan, "'Our Will Shakespeare' and Lope de Vega: An Unrecorded Contemporary Document," in Allardyce Nicoll (ed.),Shakespeare Survey, 16,Cambridge University Press, 2002 reprint, pp.118-120: Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: a compact documentary life, ibid.p.313
- ^ Wood, Anthony, Athenae Oxonienses: an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford from 1500 to 1690, published in London in 1692.
- ^ a b Freehafer, John, "Leonard Digges, Ben Jonson, and the Beginning of Shakespeare Idolatry", Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Winter, 1970), pp. 63-75
External links
- First Folio Digital Resource - Leeds University Library