Samuel Daniel
born 1562?, Taunton, Somerset, Eng.
died 1619
English contemplative poet, marked in both verse
and prose by his philosophic sense of history.
Daniel entered Oxford in 1581. After publishing
a translation in 1585 for his first patron, Sir
Edward Dymoke, he secured a post with the
English ambassador at Paris; later he travelled
in Italy, visiting the poet Battista Guarini in
Padua. After 1592 he lived at Lincoln in the
service of Sir Edward Dymoke, at Wilton as tutor
to William Herbert, later earl of Pembroke, and
at Skipton Castle, Yorkshire, as tutor to Lady
Anne Clifford. In 1604 Queen Anne chose him to
write a masque, The Vision of the Twelve
Goddesses, in which she danced. She awarded him
the right to license plays for the boy actors at
the Blackfriars Theatre and a position as a
groom, and later gentleman, of her privy
chamber.
Edmund Spenser praised Daniel for his first
book of poems, Delia, with The Complaint of
Rosamond (1592). Daniel published 50 sonnets in
this book, and more were added in later
editions. The passing of youth and beauty is the
theme of the Complaint, a tragic monologue. In
The Tragedie of Cleopatra (1594) Daniel wrote a
Senecan drama. The Civile Warres (1595–1609), a
verse history of the Wars of the Roses, had some
influence on Shakespeare in Richard II and Henry
IV; it is Daniel’s most ambitious work.
Daniel’s finest poem is probably “Musophilus:
Containing a Generall Defence of Learning,”
dedicated to Fulke Greville. His Poeticall
Essayes (1599) also include “A Letter from
Octavia to Marcus Antonius.” His Defence of Ryme,
answering Thomas Campion’s Observations in the
Art of English Poesie, a critical essay, was
published in 1603. Fame and honour are the
subjects of “Ulisses and the Syren” (1605) and
of A Funerall Poeme uppon the Earle of
Devonshire (1606). He had to defend himself
against a charge of sympathizing with the Earl
of Essex in The Tragedie of Philotas, acted in
1604 (published 1605). His other masques include
Tethys’ Festival (1610), staged with scenery by
Inigo Jones, and The Queenes Arcadia (published
1606), a pastoral tragicomedy in the Italian
fashion. Daniel’s last pastoral was Hymens
Triumph (1615). He also wrote The Collection of
the Historie of England (1612–18) as far as the
reign of Edward III.
