George Gascoigne, born about 1539 and dead on 7 October 1577, was one of the most adventurous and consequential writers of early Elizabethan England. Poet, translator, dramatist, critic, court entertainer, soldier, traveler, and sometime political aspirant, he lived with the instability and appetite that his writing so often dramatizes. His career was brief, troubled by debt, family conflict, legal suspicion, militar…
“the more monosyllables that you use, the truer Englishman you shall seem, and the less you shall smell of the inkhorn”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Peace, Joy
John Gay, born on 30 June 1685 in Barnstaple, Devon, and dead in London on 4 December 1732, occupies a distinctive place in the literature of the early eighteenth century. He was a poet, dramatist, librettist, fabulist, journalist, and observer of urban life, but none of these labels fully contains him. His greatest achievement, The Beggar’s Opera, changed the history of English theatre by making songs familiar to or…
“While there is life there's hope.”
Neighbourhood:
Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Satirical Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Wonder, Tenderness
