Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era, continuing to write through the reign of James I and into the reign of Charles I.[1] Many of his works consisted of historical poetry. He was also the first English-language author to write odes in the style of Horace.[1][2] He died on 23 December 1631 in London.[2]
Michael Drayton
Early life[edit]
Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England in early 1563. Not much is documented about his early life, except that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham, Nottinghamshire. In his early years, it is believed that Drayton entered the service of Sir Henry Goodere, who provided for Drayton's education.[2] Nineteenth- and 20th-century scholars, on the basis of scattered allusions in his poems and dedications, suggested that Drayton might have studied at the University of Oxford, and been intimate with the Polesworth branch of the Goodere family. More recent work has cast doubt on those speculations, suggesting that it is more likely Drayton's "social status was inferior to that of William Shakespeare and well below that of Edmund Spenser or Samuel Daniel, both of whom obtained university degrees".[1][3]
Editions[edit]
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 quarto[11] but these were very unintelligently and inaccurately prepared.
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 volume of selections, edited by A. H. Bullen, appeared in 1883. See especially Oliver Elton, Michael Drayton (1906).
A complete five-volume edition of Drayton's work was published by Oxford in 1931–41 (revised 1961), edited by J. William Hebel, K. Tillotson and B. H. Newdigate. 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.
