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Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poetry who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era, continuing to write through the reign of James I and into the reign of Charles I. Many of his works consisted of historical poetry. He was also the first English-language author to write odes in the style of Horace. He died in 1631 in London.
/ref> It is notable for a version of the Song of Solomon, executed with considerable richness of expression. However, with the exception of forty copies, seized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the whole edition was destroyed by public order. Nevertheless, Drayton published a vast amount within the next few years.
In 1593 appeared Idea: The Shepherd's Garland, a collection of nine pastorals, in which he celebrated his personal love-sorrows under the pseudonym of Rowland. Drayton then produced two further 'Ideas': a cycle of 51 entitled Ideas Mirrour (1594, expanded and revised as Idea in several versions from 1599 to 1619), by which we learn that the lady lived by the river Ankor in Warwickshire, and an epyllion, Endimion and Phoebe: Ideas Latmus (1595).Vuillemin, Rémi, "Michael Drayton's Early Career and the Petrarchism of Ideas Mirrour", Studies in Philology 118.1 (Winter 2021), pp. 70–96
This has led to the notion that he failed to win his "Idea", and lived and died a bachelor, one of a series of biographical interpretations of the poems that Jean Brink sees as "romantic flourishes".Brink, Jean, Michael Drayton Revisited, p. 2
It has been said Drayton's sonnets possess a direct, instant and universal appeal because of their simple straightforward ring and foreshadowing of the smooth style of Thomas Fairfax, Edmund Waller and Dryden. Drayton was the first to bring the term ode, for a lyrical poem, to popularity in England and was a master of the short, staccato Anacreontics measure.Brett, Cyril, Introduction Minor Poems of Michael Drayton 1907 edition, Kindle e-book ASIN B0084CF3C6
Also in 1593 there appeared the first of Drayton's historical poems, The Legend of Piers Gaveston, and the next year saw the publication of Matilda, an epic poem in rhyme royal. It was about this time, too, that he brought out Endimion and Phoebe, a volume which he never republished, but which contains some interesting autobiographical matter, and acknowledgments of literary help from Thomas Lodge, if not from Edmund Spenser and Samuel Daniel also. In his Fig for Momus, Lodge reciprocated these friendly courtesies.
In 1596, Drayton published his long and important poem Mortimeriados, a very serious production in ottava rima. He later enlarged and modified this poem, and republished it in 1603 under the title of The Barons' Wars. In 1596 also appeared another historical poem, The Legend of Robert Curthose, with which Piers Gaveston was reprinted. In 1597 appeared England's Heroical Epistles, a series of historical studies, in imitation of those of Ovid. These last poems, written in the heroic couplet, contain some of the finest passages in Drayton's writings.
He had adopted as early as 1598 the extraordinary resolution of celebrating all the points of topographical or antiquarian interest in the island of Great Britain, and on this laborious work he was engaged for many years. At last, in 1613, the first part of this vast work was published under the title of Poly-Olbion, eighteen books being produced, to which the learned John Selden supplied notes.
The success of this work, which has since become so famous, was very small at first, and not until 1622 did Drayton succeed in finding a publisher willing to undertake the risk of bringing out twelve more books in a second part. This completed the survey of England, and the poet, who had hoped "to crown Scotland with flowers," and arrive at last at the Orkney, never crossed the River Tweed. In 1627 he published another of his miscellaneous volumes, and this contains some of his most characteristic writing. It consists of the following pieces: The Battle of Agincourt, an historical poem in ottava rima (not to be confused with his ballad on the same subject), and The Miseries of Queen Margaret, written in the same verse and manner; Nimphidia, the Court of Faery, an epic of fairyland; The Quest of Cinthia and The Shepherd's Sirena, two lyrical pastorals; and finally The Moon Calf, a sort of satire. Nimphidia is the most critically acclaimed, along with his famous ballad on the battle of Agincourt. The last of Drayton's voluminous publications was The Muses' Elizium in 1630.
In one of Drayton's poems, an elegy or epistle to Mr Henry Reynolds, he left some valuable criticisms on English poets from Chaucer's time to his own, including Shakespeare.
According to one 19th century source,
He died in London, was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, and had a monument placed over him by the Countess of Dorset,Margaret Drabble, ed. (1985) The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press; p. 292 with memorial lines attributed to Ben Jonson. The memorial was sculpted by Edward Marshall. Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 Rupert Gunnis, p. 254
Drayton may have preferred the role of impresario to that of playwright; he was one of the lessees of the Whitefriars Theatre, together with Thomas Woodford, nephew of the playwright Thomas Lodge, when it was started in 1608. Around 1606, Drayton was also part of a syndicate that chartered a company of boy player, The Children of the King's Revels. These may or may not have been the Children of Paul's under a new name, since the latter group appears to have gone out of existence at about this time. The venture was not a success, dissolving in litigation in 1609.
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.
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