Stephen Gosson
Stephen Gosson (April 1554 – 13 February 1624) was an English satirist.
Biography
Gosson was baptized at St George's Church, Canterbury, on 17 April 1554. He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 he went to London. In 1598, Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia mentions him with Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Abraham Fraunce, and others as the "best for pastorall", but no pastorals of Gosson's are extant. He is said to have been an actor.
After the publication of the Schoole of Abuse, Gosson retired to the country, where he acted as tutor to the sons of a gentleman (Plays Confuted. "To the Reader," 1582).
Works
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Gosson's attack on poets seems to have had a large share in inducing Sidney to write his Apologie for Poetrie, which probably dates from 1581. The publication of his polemic provoked many retorts, the most formidable of which was Thomas Lodge's Defence of Playes (1580). The players themselves retaliated by reviving Gosson's own plays. Gosson replied to his various opponents in 1582 by his Playes Confuted in Five Actions, dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham. Pleasant Quippes for Upstart New-fangled Gentlewomen (1595), a coarse satiric poem, is also ascribed to Gosson.
The Schoole of Abuse and Apologie were edited (1868) by Edward Arber in his English Reprints. Two poems of Gosson's are included.
Notes
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References
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gosson, Stephen". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
External links
- The Schoole of Abuse by Stephen Gosson
- Hutchinson, John (1892). . Men of Kent and Kentishmen (Subscription ed.). Canterbury: Cross & Jackman. p. 55.