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Thomas Shadwell (c. 1642 – 19 November 1692) was an English
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 poet
Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry....
 and playwright
Playwright

A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works may be written specifically to be performed by actors or they may be closet dramas or literary works written using dramatic forms but not meant for performance....
 who was appointed poet laureate
Poet Laureate

A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events....
 in 1689.

well was born at Stanton Hall, Norfolk
Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying Counties of England in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and with Suffolk to the south....
, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Located in Cambridge, England, in the United Kingdom, the college is often referred to simply as Caius after the College?s second founder John Caius who fashionably Latin the spelling of his name after studying in Italy....
, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and joined the Middle Temple
Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn....
.






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Quotations


And wit's the noblest frailty of the mind.

Act II, sc. i

Every man loves what he is good at.

Act V, sc. i

I am, out of the ladies' company, like a fish out of the water.

Act III, sc. i

The haste of a fool is the slowest thing in the world.

Act III, sc. i





Encyclopedia


Shadwellt
Thomas Shadwell (c. 1642 – 19 November 1692) was an English
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 poet
Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry....
 and playwright
Playwright

A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works may be written specifically to be performed by actors or they may be closet dramas or literary works written using dramatic forms but not meant for performance....
 who was appointed poet laureate
Poet Laureate

A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events....
 in 1689.

Life

Shadwell was born at Stanton Hall, Norfolk
Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying Counties of England in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and with Suffolk to the south....
, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Located in Cambridge, England, in the United Kingdom, the college is often referred to simply as Caius after the College?s second founder John Caius who fashionably Latin the spelling of his name after studying in Italy....
, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and joined the Middle Temple
Middle Temple

The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn....
. At the Whig triumph in 1688, he superseded John Dryden
John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of English Restoration to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden....
 as poet laureate and historiographer royal. He died at Chelsea on 19 November 1692.

Works

In 1668 he produced a prose comedy, The Sullen Lovers, or the Impertinents, based on Les Fâcheux by Molière
Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, also known by his stage name Moli?re, was a French playwright and actor who is considered one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature....
, and written in open imitation of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was an England English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satire plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist , and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his Lyric poetry poems....
's comedy of humours. His best plays are Epsom Wells (1672), for which Sir Charles Sedley
Charles Sedley

Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet , was an England wit, dramatist and politician....
 wrote a prologue, and the Squire of Alsatia (1688). Alsatia
Alsatia

Alsatia in London, was the name given to an area lying north of the River Thames covered by the Carmelites monastery, to the south of the west end of Fleet Street and adjacent to Temple Bar, London....
 was the cant
Cant

Cant or canting may refer to:*Empty, hypocritical talk - See*Cant , a secret language**Thieves' cant**Shelta language or the Cant, a language used by the Irish Travellers...
 name for the Whitefriars
Carmelites

The Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel or Carmelites is a Roman Catholic religious order perhaps founded in the 12th century on Mount Carmel, whence the order receives its name....
 area of London, then a kind of sanctuary for persons liable to arrest, and the play represents, in dialogue full of the local argot
Argot

Argot is a secret language used by various groups?including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals?to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations....
, the adventures of a young heir who falls into the hand of the sharpers there.

For fourteen years from the production of his first comedy to his memorable encounter with John Dryden
John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of English Restoration to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden....
, Shadwell produced a play nearly every year. These productions display a hatred of sham, and a rough but honest moral purpose. Although bawdy, they present a vivid picture of contemporary manners.

Shadwell is chiefly remembered as the unfortunate Mac Flecknoe of Dryden's satire, the "last great prophet of tautology
Tautology (rhetoric)

In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary or unessential repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing twice by repeating the meaning ....
," and the literary son and heir of Richard Flecknoe
Richard Flecknoe

Richard Flecknoe , England dramatist and poet, the object of John Dryden's satire, was probably of English birth, although there is no corroboration of the suggestion of Joseph Gillow, that he was a nephew of a Society of Jesus priest, William Flecknoe, or more properly Flexney, of Oxford....
:
"The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense."


Dryden had furnished Shadwell with a prologue to his True Widow (1679), and in spite of momentary differences, the two had been on friendly terms. But when Dryden joined the court party, and produced Absalom and Achitophel
Absalom and Achitophel

Absalom and Achitophel is a landmark poetic political satire by John Dryden. The poem exists in two parts. The first part, of 1681, is undoubtedly by Dryden....
 and The Medal, Shadwell became the champion of the Protestants, and made a scurrilous attack on Dryden in The Medal of John Bayes: a Satire against Folly and Knavery (1682). Dryden immediately retorted in Mac Flecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T.S. (1682), in which Shadwell's personalities were returned with interest. A month later he contributed to Nahum Tate
Nahum Tate

Nahum Tate was an Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692....
's continuation of Absalom and Achitophel satirical portraits of Elkanah Settle
Elkanah Settle

Elkanah Settle , was an England poet and playwright.He was born at Dunstable, and entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1666, but left without taking a degree....
 as Doeg and of Shadwell as Og. In 1687, Shadwell attempted to answer these attacks in a version of Juvenal's 10th Satire.

However, Dryden's portrait of Shadwell in Absalom and Achitophel cut far deeper, and has withstood the test of time. In this satire, Dryden noted of Settle and Shadwell:

Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse;
Who, by my muse, to all succeeding times
Shall live, in spite of their own doggrel rhymes;


Nonetheless, Shadwell, due to the Whig
British Whig Party

The Whigs are often described as one of two political party in Kingdom of England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries....
 triumph in 1688 superseded his enemy as Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate

A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events....
 and historiographer royal.

His son, Charles Shadwell
Charles Shadwell

Charles Shadwell was an England playwright of the 18th century, date of birth unknown, dead in 1726.The son of Thomas Shadwell, Charles Shadwell was the author of The Fair Quaker of Deal, Irish Hospitality, or, Virtue Rewarded, and other plays, collected and published in 1720....
 was also a playwright. A scene from his play, "The Stockjobber
Stockjobber

Stockjobbers were institutions that acted as market maker in the London Stock Exchange. Prior to the Big Bang in 1986, every stock traded on the Exchange passed through a jobber's book, where they acted as intermediaries between stockbrokers....
s" was included as an introduction in Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill

Caryl Churchill is an England dramatist known for her use of non-Naturalism techniques and feminist themes. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer....
's "Serious Money" (1987).

Poems


Dear Pretty Youth

Dear Pretty Youth
Dear pretty youth, unveil your eyes,
How can you sleep when I am by?
Were I with you all night to be,
Methinks I could from sleep be free.
Alas, my dear, you're cold as stone:
You must no longer lie alone.
But be with me my dear, and I in each arm
Will hug you close and keep you warm.
  


Love in their little veins inspires

Love in their little veins inspires
Love in their little veins inspires
their cheerful notes, their soft desires.
While heat makes buds and blossoms spring,
those pretty couples love and sing.
But winter puts out their desire,
and half the year they want love's fire.
  


Nymphs and Shepherds

Nymphs and Shepherds
Nymphs and shepherds, come away.
In the groves let's sport and play,
For this is Flora's holiday,
Sacred to ease and happy love,
To dancing, to music and to poetry;
Your flocks may now securely rove
Whilst you express your jollity.
Nymphs and shepherds, come away.
  



Bibliography

A complete edition of Shadwell's works was published by another son, Sir John Shadwell, in 1720. His other dramatic works are:
  • The Royal Shepherdess (1669), an adaptation of John Fountain's Rewards of Virtue
  • The Humorist (1671)
  • The Miser (1672), adapted from Molière
  • Psyche (1675)
  • The Libertine
    The Libertine

    The Libertine may refer to:*The Libertine , a 1969 Italian film*Le Libertin , a 2000 French film starring Audrey Tautou*The Libertine , a 2005 film starring Johnny Depp...
     (1676)
  • The Virtuoso (1676)
  • The history of Timon of Athens the Man-hater (1678),--on this Shakespearian adaptation see O Beber, Shadwell's Bearbeitung des Timon of Athens (Röstock, 1897)
  • A True Widow (1679)
  • The Woman Captain (1680), revived in 1744 as The Prodigal
  • The Lancashire Witches and Teague O'Divelly, the Irish Priest (1682)
  • Bury Fair (1689)
  • The Amorous Bigot, with the second part of Teague O'Divelly (1690)
  • The Scowerers (1691)
  • The Volunteers, or Stockjobbers, published posthumously (1693).


External links