DRAYTON, MICHAEL

born 1563, Hartshill, Warwickshire, Eng. died 1631, London Drayton, oil painting by an unknown artist, 1628; in the Dulwich College Picture Gallery, London poet, the first to write English odes in the manner of Horace. Drayton spent his early years in the service of Sir Henry Goodere, to whom he owed his education, and whose daughter, Anne, he celebrated as Idea in his poems. His first published work, The Harmonie of the Church (1591), contains biblical paraphrases in an antiquated style. His next works conformed more nearly to contemporary fashion: in pastoral, with Idea, The Shepheards Garland (1593); in sonnet, with Ideas Mirrour (1594); in erotic idyll, with Endimion and Phoebe (1595); and in historical heroic poem, with Robert, Duke of Normandy (1596) and Mortimeriados (1596). The last, originally written in rhyme royal, was recast in Ludovico Ariosto's ottava rima verse as The Barrons Warres (1603). Drayton's most original poems of this period are Englands Heroicall Epistles (1597), a series of pairs of letters exchanged between famous lovers in English history. Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Drayton, like most other poets, acclaimed in verse the accession of King James I, but unlike them omitted any reference to the late queen. For this tactlessness he failed to receive any appointment or reward. The disappointment adversely affected his poetry of the next few years. He recovered himself with his first collected Poems (1605), and in Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall (1606) he introduced a new mode with the odes, modeled on Horace. The Ballad of Agincourt shows Drayton's gift for pure narrative. Further collected editions culminated in his most important book, Poems (1619). Here Drayton reprinted most of what he chose to preserve, often much revised, with many new poems and sonnets. He had also published the first part of his most ambitious work, Poly-Olbion (161222), in which he intended to record the Elizabethan discovery of England: the beauty of the countryside, the romantic fascination of ruined abbeys, its history, legend, and present life, but he was too eager to cram everything in, so that the poem becomes a catalog in alexandrines. He produced a second part in 1622. In his old age he wrote some of his most delightful poetry, especially the fairy poem Nymphidia (1627), with its mock-heroic undertones, and The Muses Elizium (1630). The Elegies upon Sundry Occasions (1627), addressed to his friends, often suggest, with their easy, polished couplets, the manner of the age of Alexander Pope.