1.
1590s in architecture
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1590 Sinan Pasha Mosque in Damascus, Syria, is completed. Court theatre at Sabbioneta, designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, is completed, Church of Tolentini, Venice, Italy, is designed by Vincenzo Scamozzi, it will not be completed until 1714. 1590–1595 - Belvedere in Florence, Italy, designed by Bernardo Buontalenti, is constructed, 1590–1597 - Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, England, designed by Robert Smythson, is constructed. 1591 Rialto Bridge in Venice, designed by Antonio da Ponte, is completed, Church of San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome is designed by Ottaviano Nonni. 1592 - Church of Il Redentore on Giudecca in Venice, designed by Andrea Palladio, is consecrated, - Kasthamandap temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. 1593–1597 - Rushton Triangular Lodge in Northamptonshire, England, is designed and constructed by Sir Thomas Tresham,1599 - In Padua, renovation begins on the Palazzo del Capitaniato arch and clock tower. Giovanni Antonio Rusconis Della architettura is published posthumously in Venice
2.
Irish poetry
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Irish poetry includes poetry in two languages, Irish and English. The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century and this culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe, the earliest examples date from the 6th century, and are generally short lyrics on themes from religion or the world of nature. They were frequently written by their authors in the margins of the illuminated manuscripts that they were copying. The best known example is Pangur Bán and it was practical for poems to be short because the Irish recognized that it was necessary to use any means necessary to make the poems lasting in their oral culture. To accomplish such a feat as well as they have, they used complicated rhyme schemes that would render a poem nonsensical if any of the key words were changed from the original version, in an oral culture, Irish poetry had many uses. A poem could be used to both the poet and the subject of the poem, oftentimes kings would commission poets to create a piece about them. Such poems would be passed on to descendants so they would remember the deeds of past generations. Kings would also commission poets to write poems of advertisement, speaking of the greatness and worthiness. Oral poetry, because it was in the vernacular, was used for entertainment. Poems that were entertaining could also be informative, teaching people lessons or offering them wisdom of experience for dealing with situations they would encounter in their everyday lives. Finally, poems, especially those featured in the sagas, were thought to be an instrument of the supernatural, Another source of early Irish poetry is the poems in the tales and sagas, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Unlike many other European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in prose, Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles and they were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicin, the Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape, the earliest of these date from the 11th century, and were probably originally compiled on a provincial basis. As a national compilation, the Metrical Dindshenchas has come down to us in two different recensions. Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland, verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as Ossianic poetry, were extremely common in Ireland and Scotland throughout this period
3.
Elizabeth I of England
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Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeths birth. Annes marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate, edwards will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Marys reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels, in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, one of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England and it was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships, as she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, in government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been. One of her mottoes was video et taceo, in religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, by the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain. Englands defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history, Elizabeths reign is known as the Elizabethan era. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler, towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Such was the case with Elizabeths rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, after the short reigns of Elizabeths half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity. Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace and was named after both her grandmothers, Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Howard and she was the second child of Henry VIII of England born in wedlock to survive infancy. Her mother was Henrys second wife, Anne Boleyn, at birth, Elizabeth was the heir presumptive to the throne of England. She was baptised on 10 September, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk, Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded on 19 May 1536, four months after Catherine of Aragons death from natural causes. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession, eleven days after Anne Boleyns execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, who died shortly after the birth of their son, Prince Edward, in 1537
4.
Edmund Spenser
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Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse. He was deeply affected by Irish faerie mythology, which he knew from his home at Kilcolman and his genocidal tracts against Gaelic culture were war propaganda. His house was burned to the ground during the war, causing him to flee Ireland, Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552, though there is some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. As a young boy, he was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors School, while at Cambridge he became a friend of Gabriel Harvey and later consulted him, despite their differing views on poetry. In 1578, he became for a time secretary to John Young. In 1579, he published The Shepheardes Calender and around the time married his first wife. They had two children, Sylvanus and Katherine, in July 1580, Spenser went to Ireland in service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. Spenser served under Lord Gray with Walter Raleigh at the Siege of Smerwick massacre, when Lord Grey was recalled to England, Spenser stayed on in Ireland, having acquired other official posts and lands in the Munster Plantation. Raleigh acquired other nearby Munster estates confiscated in the Second Desmond Rebellion, some time between 1587 and 1589, Spenser acquired his main estate at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork. He later bought a second holding to the south, at Rennie and its ruins are still visible today. A short distance away grew a tree, locally known as Spensers Oak until it was destroyed in a strike in the 1960s. Local legend has it that he penned some of The Faerie Queene under this tree. In 1590, Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, The Faerie Queene, having travelled to London to publish and promote the work and he was successful enough to obtain a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen. By 1594, Spensers first wife had died, and in that year he married Elizabeth Boyle, the marriage itself was celebrated in Epithalamion. They had a son named Peregrine, in 1596, Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet titled A View of the Present State of Ireland. This piece, in the form of a dialogue, circulated in manuscript and it is probable that it was kept out of print during the authors lifetime because of its inflammatory content. The pamphlet argued that Ireland would never be totally pacified by the English until its indigenous language and customs had been destroyed, in 1598, during the Nine Years War, Spenser was driven from his home by the native Irish forces of Aodh Ó Néill
5.
English poetry
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This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life
6.
Philip Sidney
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Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poesy, born at Penshurst Place, Kent, he was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley. His mother was the eldest daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and his younger brother, Robert was a statesman and patron of the arts, and was created Earl of Leicester in 1618. His younger sister, Mary, married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and was a writer, translator, Sidney dedicated his longest work, the Arcadia, to her. After her brothers death, Mary reworked the Arcadia, which known as The Countess of Pembrokes Arcadia. Philip was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford and he spent the next several years in mainland Europe, moving through Germany, Italy, Poland, the Kingdom of Hungary and Austria. On these travels, he met a number of prominent European intellectuals, returning to England in 1575, Sidney met Penelope Devereux, the future Lady Rich, though much younger, she would inspire his famous sonnet sequence of the 1580s, Astrophel and Stella. Her father, Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, is said to have planned to marry his daughter to Sidney, in England, Sidney occupied himself with politics and art. He defended his fathers administration of Ireland in a lengthy document, more seriously, he quarrelled with Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, probably because of Sidneys opposition to the French marriage, which de Vere championed. In the aftermath of episode, Sidney challenged de Vere to a duel. He then wrote a letter to the Queen detailing the foolishness of the French marriage. Characteristically, Elizabeth bristled at his presumption, and Sidney prudently retired from court, during a 1577 diplomatic visit to Prague, Sidney secretly visited the exiled Jesuit priest Edmund Campion. Sidney had returned to court by the middle of 1581 and in 1584 was MP for Kent and that same year Penelope Devereux was married, apparently against her will, to Lord Rich. An early arrangement to marry Anne Cecil, daughter of Sir William Cecil, in 1583, he married Frances, teenage daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. In the same year, he made a visit to Oxford University with Giordano Bruno and his artistic contacts were more peaceful and more significant for his lasting fame. During his absence from court, he wrote Astrophel and Stella, somewhat earlier, he had met Edmund Spenser, who dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to him. Both through his heritage and his personal experience, Sidney was a keenly militant Protestant. In the 1570s, he had persuaded John Casimir to consider proposals for a united Protestant effort against the Roman Catholic Church, in the early 1580s, he argued unsuccessfully for an assault on Spain itself
7.
Astrophel and Stella
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Probably composed in the 1580s, Philip Sidneys Astrophil and Stella is an English sonnet sequence containing 108 sonnets and 11 songs. The name derives from the two Greek words, aster and phil, and the Latin word stella meaning star, thus Astrophil is the star lover, and Stella is his star. Sidney also adopts the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, though he uses it with such freedom that fifteen variants are employed. Some have suggested that the love represented within the sequence may be a one as Sidney evidently connects Astrophil to himself and Stella to Lady Penelope Devereux. Sidney and Lady Penelope had been betrothed when the latter was a child, for some reason the match was broken off, and Lady Penelope married Lord Rich, with whom she lived for a while most unhappily. She is thought to be the Penelope Rich, the wife of Robert Rich, many of the poems were circulated in manuscript form before the first edition was printed by Thomas Newman in 1591, five years after Sidneys death. This edition included ten of Sidneys songs, a preface by Thomas Nashe and verses from other poets including Thomas Campion, Samuel Daniel, Newman printed a second version later in the year, and though the text was more accurate it was still flawed. The version of Astrophil and Stella commonly used is found in the folio of the 1598 version of Sidneys Arcadia, though still not completely free from error, this was prepared under the supervision of his sister the Countess of Pembroke and is considered the most authoritative text available. All known versions of Astrophil and Stella have the poems in the same order, the Oxford University Press collection of Sidneys major works has this to say about the title, There is no evidence that the title is authorial. It derives from the first printed text, the quarto edition published by Thomas Newman. Newman may also have been responsible for the consistent practice in early printings of calling the lover persona Astrophel, but words came halting forth, wanting Inventions stay, Invention, Natures child, fled step-dame Studys blows, And others feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, Fool said my Muse to me, look in thy heart and write. The windowes now through which this heavnly guest Looks over the world, of touch they are that without touch doth touch, Which Cupids selfe from Beauties myne did draw, Of touch they are, and poore I am their straw. 19 On Cupids bow how are my heartstrings bent, That see my wrack, when most I glory, then I feel most shame, I willing run, yet while I run, repent. My best wits still their own disgrace invent, My very ink turns straight to Stellas name, And yet my words, as them my pen doth frame, Avise themselves that they are vainly spent. For though she pass all things, yet what is all That unto me, oh let me prop my mind, yet in his growth, And not in Nature, for best fruits unfit, Scholar, saith Love, bend hitherward your wit. 20 Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, see there that boy, that murthering boy I say, Who like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie, Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey. So tyrant he no fitter place could spy, Nor so fair level in so secret stay, As that sweet black which veils the heavnly eye, charles Tessier London 1597 MacArthur, J. Critical Contexts of Sidneys Astrophil and Stella, and Spensers Amoretti
8.
Thomas Campion
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Thomas Campion was an English composer, poet, and physician. He wrote over a hundred songs, masques for dancing. Campion was born in London, the son of John Campion, a clerk of the Court of Chancery, upon the death of Campions father in 1576, his mother married Augustine Steward, dying soon afterwards. His stepfather assumed charge of the boy and sent him, in 1581, to study at Peterhouse, Cambridge as a gentleman pensioner and he later entered Grays Inn to study law in 1586. However, he left in 1595 without having called to the bar. On 10 February 1605, he received his degree from the University of Caen. Campion is thought to have lived in London, practising as a physician and he was apparently unmarried and had no children. He was buried the day at St Dunstan-in-the-West in Fleet Street. He was implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, but was eventually exonerated, in 1595, Poemata, a collection of Latin panegyrics, elegies and epigrams was published, winning him a considerable reputation. This was followed, in 1601, by a songbook, A Booke of Ayres, with words by himself and music composed by himself, Campions theories on poetry were criticized by Samuel Daniel in Defence of Rhyme. If, moreover, as appears quite likely, his Two Bookes of Ayres belongs also to this year and it was included, with annotations by Christopher Sympson, in Playfords Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick, and two editions appear to have been published by 1660. Some time in or after 1617 appeared his Third and Fourth Booke of Ayres, in 1619, he published his Epigrammatum Libri II. Umbra Elegiarum liber unus, a reprint of his 1595 collection with considerable omissions, additions and corrections, while Campion had attained a considerable reputation in his own day, in the years that followed his death his works sank into complete oblivion. No doubt this was due to the nature of the media in which he worked, the masque. The masque was an amusement at any time too costly to be popular, and during the commonwealth period it was practically extinguished. The vogue of the song-books was even more ephemeral, and, as in the case of the masque, the Puritan ascendancy, with its distaste for all secular music, effectively put an end to the madrigal. His rhymeless experiments are certainly better conceived than many others, but they lack the grace and freshness of his other poetry, while the whole scheme was, of course. Rarely are his rhythms uniform, while they frequently shift from line to line, in some of his sacred pieces, he is particularly successful, combining real poetry with genuine religious fervour
9.
Michael Drayton
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Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham, Nottinghamshire. More recent work has cast doubt on those speculations, in 1590 he produced his first book, The Harmony of the Church, a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated to Lady Devereux. It is notable for a version of the Song of Solomon, 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 few years. In 1593 appeared Idea, The Shepherds Garland, a collection of nine pastorals, in which he celebrated his own love-sorrows under the poetic name of Rowland. The basic idea was expanded in a cycle of sonnets, published in 1594, under the title of Ideas Mirror. It appears that he failed to win his Idea, and lived and died a bachelor. It has been said Draytons sonnets possess a direct, instant, and universal appeal, by reason of their simple straightforward ring and foreshadowed the style of Fairfax, Waller. Drayton was the first to bring the term ode, for a poem, to popularity in England and was a master of the short. Also in 1593 there appeared the first of Draytons historical poems, The Legend of Piers Gaveston, and the year saw the publication of Matilda. 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, Duke of Normandy, with which Piers Gaveston was reprinted. In 1597 appeared Englands Heroical Epistles, a series of historical studies and these last poems, written in the heroic couplet, contain some of the finest passages in Draytons writings. By 1597, the poet was resting on his laurels and it seems that he was much favoured at the court of Elizabeth, and he hoped that it would be the same with her successor. But when, in 1603, he addressed a poem of compliment to James I, on his accession, it was ridiculed and his bitterness found expression in a satire, The Owl, but he had no talent in this kind of composition. Not much more entertaining was his scriptural narrative of Moses in a Map of his Miracles, in 1605 Drayton reprinted his most important works, his historical poems and the Idea, in a single volume which ran through eight editions during his lifetime. Some of the odes are extremely spirited, in this volume he printed for the first time the famous Ballad of Agincourt
10.
Torquato Tasso
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He suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was due to be crowned as the king of poets by the Pope. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe. Born in Sorrento, Torquato was the son of Bernardo Tasso, a nobleman of Bergamo and an epic and lyric poet of considerable fame in his day, and his wife Porzia de Rossi, a noblewoman from Naples. His father had for years been secretary in the service of Ferrante Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno. When the prince of Salerno came into collision with the Spanish government of Naples, being subsequently outlawed and deprived of his hereditary fiefs and he was proclaimed a rebel to the state, together with his son Torquato, and his patrimony was sequestered. These things happened during the boys childhood, in 1552 Torquato was living with his mother and his only sister Cornelia at Naples, pursuing his education under the Jesuits, who had recently opened a school there. The precocity of intellect and the fervour of the boy attracted general admiration. At the age of eight he was already famous, soon after this date he was allowed to join his father, who then resided in great poverty and without occupation in exile in Rome. News reached them in 1556 that Porzia Tasso had died suddenly and mysteriously at Naples and her husband was firmly convinced that she had been poisoned by her brother with the object of getting control over her property. As it subsequently happened, Porzias estate never descended to her son, Tassos father was a poet by predilection and a professional courtier. Therefore, when an opening at the court of Urbino was offered in 1557, the young Torquato, a handsome and brilliant lad, became the companion in sports and studies of Francesco Maria della Rovere, heir to the duke of Urbino. At Urbino a society of cultivated men pursued the aesthetic and literary studies which were then in vogue. Bernardo Tasso read cantos of his poem LAmadigi to the duchess and her ladies, or discussed the merits of Homer and Virgil, Trissino and Ariosto, with the dukes librarians and secretaries. Torquato grew up in an atmosphere of refined luxury and somewhat pedantic criticism, at Venice, where his father went to superintend the printing of his own epic, Amadigi, these influences continued. He found himself the pet and prodigy of a literary circle. But Bernardo had suffered in his own career so seriously from dependence on the Muses and the nobility, Torquato was sent to study law at Padua. Instead of applying himself to law, the young man bestowed all his attention upon philosophy, before the end of 1562, he had produced a twelve-canto epic poem called Rinaldo, which was meant to combine the regularity of the Virgilian with the attractions of the romantic epic. Nevertheless, its author was recognized as the most promising young poet of his time, the flattered father allowed the work to be printed, and, after a short period of study at Bologna, he consented to his sons entering the service of Cardinal Luigi dEste
11.
Virgil
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Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil /ˈvɜːrdʒᵻl/ in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature, the Eclogues, the Georgics, a number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Romes greatest poets and his Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome from the time of its composition to the present day. Virgils work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dantes Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dantes guide through Hell, the tradition holds that Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. Analysis of his name has led to beliefs that he descended from earlier Roman colonists, modern speculation ultimately is not supported by narrative evidence either from his own writings or his later biographers. Macrobius says that Virgils father was of a background, however. He attended schools in Cremona, Mediolanum, Rome and Naples, after considering briefly a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. From Virgils admiring references to the neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna, it has been inferred that he was, for a time, according to Servius, schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed Parthenias or maiden because of his social aloofness. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life, according to the Catalepton, he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro the Epicurean at Naples. A group of works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana. One, the Catalepton, consists of fourteen poems, some of which may be Virgils, and another. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter Eclogues in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, the Eclogues are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic hexameter poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus. The loss of his farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as Virgils motives in the composition of the Eclogues. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues, the ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with a fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside,2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love and attraction toward people of any gender. Eclogue 4, addressed to Asinius Pollio, the so-called Messianic Eclogue uses the imagery of the age in connection with the birth of a child. Virgil came to many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace, in whose poetry he is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus. At Maecenas insistence Virgil spent the years on the long didactic hexameter poem called the Georgics which he dedicated to Maecenas
12.
John Harington (writer)
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Sir John Harington, of Kelston, but baptised in London, was an English courtier, author and translator popularly known as the inventor of the flush toilet. He became a prominent member of Queen Elizabeth Is court, and was known as her saucy Godson, but because of his poetry and other writings, he fell in and out of favour with the Queen. The work for which he is best known today, A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax is a political allegory and his New Discourse described a forerunner to the modern flush toilet that was installed at his house at Kelston. Harington was born in Kelston, Somerset, England, the son of John Harington of Kelston, the poet, and his second wife Isabella Markham and he had the honour of being accepted as a godson of the childless Queen, one of 102. The exact relationship between the John Harington of Kelston and the line of his contemporary John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton has not been established, apparently John of Kelston did not know the pedigree of his obscure grandfather, Alexander of Stepney. Nevertheless, it is assumed that he was also descended from the first Lord Harington of Aldingham. He was educated at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge, Harington married Mary Rogers, daughter of George Rogers of Cannington and Joan Winter, on 6 September 1583. Together they had nine children, two of whom died young, as his autograph revisions make clear, although he had studied the law, Harington was attracted early in life to the royal court, where his free-spoken attitude and poetry gained Elizabeths attention. The Queen encouraged his writing, but Harington was inclined to overstep the mark in his somewhat Rabelaisian and his attempt at a translation of Ariostos Orlando Furioso caused his banishment from court for some years. Angered by the raciness of his translations the Queen told Harington that he was to leave and she chose this punishment rather than actually banishing him, but she considered the task so difficult that it was assumed Harington would not bother to comply. Harington, however, chose to follow through with the request and his translation received great praise, and is one of the translations still read by English speakers today. Around this time, Harington also devised Britains first flushing toilet – called the Ajax and it was installed at his manor in Kelston. In 1596, Harington wrote a book called A New Discourse upon a Stale Subject and he published it under the pseudonym of Misacmos. The book made political allusions to the Earl of Leicester that angered the Queen, the book was a coded attack on the stercus or excrement that was poisoning society with torture and state-sponsored libels against his relatives Thomas Markham and Ralph Sheldon. After the publication of work he was again banished from the court. The Queens mixed feelings for him may have been the thing that saved Harington from being tried at Star Chamber. The work itself enjoyed considerable popularity on its publication in 1596, the forerunner to the modern flush toilet had a flush valve to let water out of the tank, and a wash-down design to empty the bowl. The term John, used particularly in the USA, is thought by some to be a reference to its inventor, following her strong recommendation that Essex include him in his army, Harington was put in command of horsemen under Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
