William Davenant

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sir William Davenant
Title page engraving of Davenant from his collected works, after a portrait by John Greenhill
Title page engraving of Davenant from his collected works, after a portrait by John Greenhill
Born1606
Oxford, England
Died7 April 1668 (aged 62)
London, England
OccupationPlaywright, poet, soldier
PeriodStuart period; Restoration era

Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with

Interregnum
.

Biography

Early life

Davenant is believed to have been born in late February, 1606 in

Samuel Butler
:

Mr. William Shakespeare was wont to go into Warwickshire once a year, and did commonly in his journey lie at this house [the Crown] in Oxon, where he was exceedingly respected... Now Sir William [Davenant] would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a glass of wine with his most intimate friends--e.g. Sam Butler, author of Hudibras, etc., say, that it seemed to him that he writ with the very spirit that did Shakespeare, and seemed contented enough to be thought his Son. He would tell them the story as above, in which way his mother had a very light report, whereby she was called a Whore.[2]

It has been suggested that Davenant simply meant that he saw himself as a literary son of Shakespeare, in the same way that followers of Ben Jonson called themselves the "Sons of Ben".[2] However, according to Samuel Schoenbaum, since Aubrey's comment was unpublished, the existence of some other sources saying the same thing suggests that the story that "Sir William was more than Shakespeare's mere poetical offspring was common in Davenant's lifetime."[2] In 1618, after Shakespeare's death, the 12-year-old Davenant wrote an ode "In Remembrance of Master Shakespeare".[3]

He attended

venereal disease, and was given a syphilis treatment by Thomas Cademan. As a convalescent, he left for the country in 1632 for a time.[4] The syphilis severely disfigured his nose, resulting in damage that is discreetly depicted in John Greenhill's portrait. His ruined nose was the subject of much ribald comment by his enemies.[5]

Poet laureate and Civil War

The title page of the 1651 edition of Gondibert

Following the death of

First Army Plot, a Royalist plan to use the army to occupy London. He fled to France.[6] Returning to join the king's army when the war started, he was knighted two years later by king Charles following the siege of Gloucester.[3]

In 1645, after the Royalist defeat at the

lieutenant governor of Maryland, but was captured at sea, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. In July, 1650, he was put on trial for his life, along with others in front of the newly established High Court of Justice. He is said to have been saved by the intervention of John Milton.[6] He spent all of 1651 in the Tower of London, where he continued writing Gondibert.[3]

On his release in 1652, he immediately published Gondibert, but 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 those of other writers 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 English opera, and also included England's first known professional actress, Mrs Coleman.[a]

Restoration

Davenant once again found himself in legal trouble in 1659, when he was imprisoned for his part in

Sir George Booth's uprising in Cheshire after the death of Cromwell. He was, however, released the same year, and left once more for France. When Charles II was restored to the throne, Davenant returned to England. The Restoration also led to the re-opening of theatres, which had been closed due to the influence of the puritans under Cromwell. In 1660, he is publicly recorded as being one of the two theatrical patentees, along with Thomas Killigrew, who obtained a monopoly of public theatre performances.[6][9]

He headed the Duke of York's Men and produced highly successful theatrical seasons at

The Tempest, written with John Dryden, who would be named the next (and first officially by letters patent
) Poet Laureate.

He died in London on 7 April 1668, shortly after his final play, The Man's the Master, was first performed. He is buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster 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 "O Rare Ben," which was the name Shakespeare supposedly had for Jonson. "O Rare" is a play on the Latin "orare", to pray.

Nine of his works, though they were previously licensed or produced in London during his life as were all of his plays, were finally published in print posthumously. Several of these were included in The Works of Sr William D'avenant Kt., by Henry Herringman in 1673, which was copied from Davenant's own originals.

Works

Epic poems and books of poetry

  • 1630: Ieffereidos
  • 1638: Madagascar, with other Poems
  • 1648: London, King Charles his Augusta, or, City Royal, of the founders, the names, and oldest honours of that City
  • 1650: A Discourse upon Gondibert, an heroick poem (or simply Gondibert), originally published unfinished, then 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 Sir William D’Avenant’s Preface before Gondibert" by Thomas 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: Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems
  • 1657: Poems on Several Occasions

Panegyrics

  • 1660: "A Panegyric to his Excellency the Lord General Monck", to
    George Monck
  • 1660: "Poem, Upon His Sacred Majesties Most Happy Return to His Dominions", on the Restoration of Charles II
  • 1663: "Poem, to the King’s most sacred Majesty", to Charles II

Original plays, masques and operas

Listed in chronological order.

Revisions, adaptations and other productions for the stage

Notes

  1. counter-tenor, composer and Gentleman of the Chapel Royal Edward Coleman.[7][8]

References

  1. ^ a b Edmond, M., Yeomen, Citizens, Gentlemen, and Players: The Burbages and Their Connections, R. B. Parker (ed), Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum, University of Delaware Press, Newark, DE: 1996, p.30.
  2. ^ a b c Schoenbaum, S., Shakespeare's Lives, Oxford University Press, 1991, p.63.
  3. ^ a b c d Alan Palmer, Veronica Palmer, Who's Who in Shakespeare's England, Palgrave Macmillan, 1 May 1999, p.61.
  4. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/7197. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  5. ^ Raymond A. Anselment, The Realms of Apollo: Literature and Healing in Seventeenth-century England, University of Delaware Press, 1995, p.109.
  6. ^ a b c Alan Hager, The Age of Milton: An Encyclopedia of Major 17th-century British and American Authors, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, p.104
  7. ISBN 0-521-81111-2
    .
  8. ^ Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 09: January/February/March 1660–61 by Samuel Pepys – via gutenberg.org.
  9. ^ Jenkins, Terry: The Royal Licensing of London Theatres in the Seventeenth Century - a history of the Killigrew and Davenant Patents granted by Charles II (Lewiston NY, Edwin Mellen Press, 2017).
  • Logan, Terence P.; Smith, Denzell S. (1975). The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to William Davenant.
Wikisource has original works by or about:
William Davenant
Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Davenant.

Biographical

Poems and texts

Court offices
Preceded by English
Poet Laureate

1638–1668 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Davenant&oldid=1171357407"