16 Facts About Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars, on the basis of scattered allusions in his poems and dedications, suggested that Michael Drayton might have studied at the University of Oxford, and been intimate with the Polesworth branch of the Goodere family.

Michael Drayton then produced two further 'Ideas': a cycle of 51 sonnets entitled Ideas Mirrour, by which we learn that the lady lived by the river Ankor in Warwickshire, and an epyllion, Endimion and Phoebe.

Michael 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.

In 1596 Michael Drayton published his long and important poem Mortimeriados, a very serious production in ottava rima.

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Michael Drayton later enlarged and modified this poem, and republished it in 1603 under the title of The Barons' Wars.

Michael Drayton's bitterness found expression in a satire, The Owl, but he had no talent in this kind of composition.

In 1605 Michael Drayton reprinted his most important works, his historical poems and the Idea, in a single volume which ran through eight editions during his lifetime.

Michael Drayton collected his smaller pieces, hitherto unedited, in a volume undated, but probably published in 1605, under the title of Poems Lyric and Pastoral; these consisted of odes, eclogues, and a fantastic satire called The Man in the Moon.

Michael Drayton 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.

The success of this great work, which has since become so famous, was very small at first, and not until 1622 did Michael Drayton succeed in finding a publisher willing to undertake the risk of bringing out twelve more books in a second part.

Michael Drayton died in London, was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, and had a monument placed over him by the Countess of Dorset, with memorial lines attributed to Ben Jonson.

Around 1606, Michael Drayton was part of a syndicate that chartered a company of child actors, The Children of the King's Revels.

Michael Drayton was a friend of some of the most famous men of the age.

Michael Drayton corresponded familiarly with Drummond; Ben Jonson, William Browne, George Wither and others were among his friends.

That and a two-volume edition of Michael 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.