Background
Phineas was an elder son of Dr. Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the younger, noticed above, was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on the 8th of April 1582.
( James Shirley was born in London in September 1596. His...)
James Shirley was born in London in September 1596. His education was through a collection of Englands finest establishments: Merchant Taylors' School, London, St John's College, Oxford, and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in approximately 1618. He first published in 1618, a poem entitled Echo, or the Unfortunate Lovers. As with many artists of this period full details of his life and career are not recorded. Sources say that after graduating he became "a minister of God's word in or near St Albans." A conversion to the Catholic faith enabled him to become master of St Albans School from 162325. He wrote his first play, Love Tricks, or the School of Complement, which was licensed on February 10th, 1625. From the given date it would seem he wrote this whilst at St Albans but, after its production, he moved to London and to live in Grays Inn. For the next two decades, he would write prolifically and with great quality, across a spectrum of thirty plays; through tragedies and comedies to tragicomedies as well as several books of poetry. Unfortunately, his talents were left to wither when Parliament passed the Puritan edict in 1642, forbidding all stage plays and closing the theatres. Most of his early plays were performed by Queen Henrietta's Men, the acting company for which Shirley was engaged as house dramatist. Shirley's sympathies lay with the King in battles with Parliament and he received marks of special favor from the Queen. He made a bitter attack on William Prynne, who had attacked the stage in Histriomastix, and, when in 1634 a special masque was presented at Whitehall by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court as a practical reply to Prynne, Shirley wrote the textThe Triumph of Peace. Shirley spent the years 1636 to 1640 in Ireland, under the patronage of the Earl of Kildare. Several of his plays were produced by his friend John Ogilby in Dublin in the first ever constructed Irish theatre; The Werburgh Street Theatre. During his years in Dublin he wrote The Doubtful Heir, The Royal Master, The Constant Maid, and St. Patrick for Ireland. In his absence from London, Queen Henrietta's Men sold off a dozen of his plays to the stationers, who naturally, enough published them. When Shirley returned to London in 1640, he finished with the Queen Henrietta's company and his final plays in London were acted by the King's Men. On the outbreak of the English Civil War Shirley served with the Earl of Newcastle. However when the King's fortunes began to decline he returned to London. There his friend Thomas Stanley gave him help and thereafter Shirley supported himself in the main by teaching and publishing some educational works under the Commonwealth. In addition to these he published during the period of dramatic eclipse four small volumes of poems and plays, in 1646, 1653, 1655, and 1659. It is said that he was a drudge for John Ogilby in his translations of Homers Iliad and the Odyssey, and survived into the reign of Charles II, but, though some of his comedies were revived, his days as a playwright were over. His death, at age seventy, along with that of his wife, in 1666, is described as one of fright and exposure due to the Great Fire of London which had raged through parts of London from September 2nd to the 5th. He was buried at St Giles in the Fields, in London, on October 29th, 1666.
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(Excerpt from The Poems of Phineas Fletcher, B. D., Rector...)
Excerpt from The Poems of Phineas Fletcher, B. D., Rector of Hilgay, Norfolk, Vol. 3 of 4: For the First Time Collected and Edited, With Memoir, Essay, and Notes; Containing Sicelides; Elisa, an Elegie; Poeticall Miscellanies; Hitherto Uncollected and Inedited Poems; Sylva Poetica, With Additions, &C Hitherto uncollected and inedited Minor Poems 265 - 306. I. On the Death of Queen Elizabeth, from Sorrowe's Joy 267 - 272. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(Selected Poetry by Phineas Fletcher. This book is a repro...)
Selected Poetry by Phineas Fletcher. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1904 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.
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Phineas was an elder son of Dr. Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the younger, noticed above, was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on the 8th of April 1582.
Phineas was educated at Eton and Cambridge, receiving the degree of M. A., and remained at Cambridge from 1600 to 1616.
Phineas Fletcher wrote throughout his life.
In 1627 he published Locustae, vet Pietas Jesuitica.
The Locusts or Apollyonists, two parallel poems in Latin and English furiously attacking the Jesuits.
Dr Grosart saw in this work one of the sources of Milton's conception of Satan.
Next year appeared an erotic poem, Brittains Ida, with Edmund Spenser's name on the title-page.
It is certainly not by Spenser, and is printed by Dr Grosart with the works of Phineas Fletcher.
Sicelides, a play acted at King's College in 1614, was printed in 1631.
In 1632 appeared two theological prose treatises, The Way to Blessedness and Joy in Tribulation, and in 1633 his magnum opus, The Purple Island.
He died in 1650, his will being proved by his widow on the 13th of December of that year.
The manner of Spenser is preserved throughout, but Fletcher never lost sight of his moralaim to lose himself in digressions like those of the Faerie Queene.
At his death he left behind a body of literature larger than that of his Renaissance contemporaries: in fact, his work rivals in size the canons of Spenser and Milton. The collected works of Phineas Fletcher include three volumes of religious prose, an epic, an epyllion, a drama, several medium-length verse narratives, pastoral eclogues, verse epistles, epithalamia, hymns, psalms, translations, various songs, occasional pieces, lyrics, and devotional poems. In scope, variety, and quality, his writings are second to none of that age.
( James Shirley was born in London in September 1596. His...)
(Excerpt from The Poems of Phineas Fletcher, B. D., Rector...)
(Selected Poetry by Phineas Fletcher. This book is a repro...)