View source for George Gascoigne

{{for|the 19th-century writer who used "George Gascoigne" as a pseudonym|William Sharp (writer)}}
{{Short description|16th-century English poet and courtier}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}}
[[Image:George Gascoigne.gif|thumb|George Gascoigne portrait from the frontispiece of ''The Steele Glas and Complaynte of Phylomene'' (1576)]]

'''George Gascoigne''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|æ|s|k|ɔɪ|n}} {{respell|GASK|oyn}}; {{c.|1535}}{{spaced ndash}}7 October 1577) was an English poet, soldier and unsuccessful [[courtier]]. He is considered the most important poet of the early [[Elizabethan era]], following [[Thomas Wyatt (poet)|Sir Thomas Wyatt]] and [[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]], and leading to the emergence of [[Philip Sidney]].<ref>May, Steven. "Early Courtier Verse: Oxford, Dyer, and Gascoigne" in ''Early Modern English Poetry'', Patrick Cheney, et al, eds. New York: Oxford UP, 2007, pp. 60–9; 61.</ref> He was the first poet to deify [[Queen Elizabeth I]], in effect establishing her cult as a virgin goddess married to her kingdom and subjects.<ref>Hamrick, Stephen. [http://purl.oclc.org/emls/11-1/hamrgasc.htm "‘Set in portraiture’: George Gascoigne, Queen Elizabeth, and Adapting the Royal Image"]. ''Early Modern Literary Studies'' 11.1 (May 2005).</ref> His most noted works include ''A Discourse of the Adventures of Master FJ'' (1573), an account of courtly intrigue and one of the earliest English prose fictions; ''The Supposes'' (performed in 1566, printed in 1573), an early translation of [[Ariosto]] and the first comedy written in English prose, which was used by [[Shakespeare]] as a source for ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'';<ref>{{Cite web |last=ajeyaseelan |date=2022-06-25 |title=§ 21. Supposes |url=https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/volume-v-english-the-drama-to-1642-part-one/21-supposes/ |access-date=2024-12-06 |website=Collection at Bartleby.com |language=en-US}}</ref> and the frequently anthologised short poem "Gascoignes woodmanship" (1573) and "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or
ryme in English" (1575), the first essay on English versification.<ref>Austen, Gillian. [http://purl.oclc.org/emls/14-1/article1.htm "Self-portraits and Self-presentation in the Work of George Gascoigne"]. ''Early Modern Literary Studies'' 14.1/Special Issue 18 (May 2008).</ref>

==Early life==
The eldest son of Sir John Gascoigne of [[Cardington, Bedfordshire]], Gascoigne was educated at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]],<ref name=Venn>{{acad|id=GSCN555G|name=Gascoigne, George}}</ref> and on leaving the university is supposed to have joined the [[Middle Temple]]. He became a member of [[Gray's Inn]] in 1555.<ref name=Venn /> He has been identified without much show of evidence with a lawyer named Gastone who was in prison in 1548 under very discreditable circumstances. There is no doubt that his escapades were notorious, and that he was imprisoned for debt. [[George Whetstone]] says that Sir John Gascoigne disinherited his son on account of his follies, but by his own account he was obliged to sell his patrimony to pay the debts contracted at court. He was [[Member of Parliament|MP]] for [[Bedford, Bedfordshire|Bedford]] in 1557–1558 and 1558–1559, but when he presented himself in 1572 for election at [[Midhurst]] he was refused on the charges of being "a defamed person and noted for [[manslaughter]]", "a common Rymer and a deviser of slaunderous [[Pasquino|Pasquelles]]", "a notorious rufilanne", and a constantly indebted [[atheist]].

His poems, with the exception of some [[commendatory verse]]s, were not published before 1572, but they may have circulated in manuscript before that date. He tells us that his friends at Gray's Inn importuned him to write on [[Latin]] themes set by them, and that two of his plays were acted there. He repaired his fortunes by marrying the wealthy widow of William Breton, thus becoming stepfather to the poet [[Nicholas Breton]]. In 1568 an inquiry into the disposition of William Breton's property with a view to the protection of the children's rights was instituted before the [[Lord Mayor]], but the matter was probably settled in a friendly manner, for Gascoigne continued to hold the Breton [[Walthamstow]] estate, which he had from his wife, until his death.

==Plays at Gray's Inn==
Gascoigne translated two plays performed in 1566 at [[Gray's Inn]], the most aristocratic of the Renaissance London [[Inns of Court]]: the prose comedy ''Supposes'' based on [[Ariosto]]'s {{ill|I Suppositi|de||it|I suppositi|italic=yes}}, and ''Jocasta'', a tragedy in blank verse which is said to have derived from [[Euripides]]'s ''[[Phoenissae]]'', but appears more directly as a translation from the Italian of [[Lodovico Dolce]]'s ''Giocasta''.<ref>Cunliffe, ''Supposes''; ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature'', ed. by Margaret Drabble, 5th edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), ''s.v.'' "Gascoige, George".</ref>

==''A Hundreth Sundry Flowres'' (1573) and ''Posies of Gascoigne'' (1575)==
Gascoigne's best known and controversial work was originally published in 1573 under the title {{lang|enm|A Hundreth Sundry Flowres bound up in one small Poesie. Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardins of [[Euripides]], [[Ovid]], [[Petrarch]], [[Ariosto]] and others; and partly by Invention out of our owne fruitefull Orchardes in Englande, Yelding Sundrie Savours of tragical, comical and moral discourse, bothe pleasaunt and profitable, to the well-smelling noses of learned readers,}} by London printer Richarde Smith. The book purports to be an anthology of courtly poets, gathered and edited by Gascoigne and two other editors known only by the initials "H.W." and "G.T." The book's content is throughout suggestive of courtly scandal, and the aura of scandal is skilfully elaborated through the effective use of initials and posies—Latin or English tags supposed to denote particular authors—in place of the real names of actual or alleged authors.

Judged to be offensive, the book was "seized by Her Majesty's High Commissioners."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hughes |first=Felicity A. |date=1997 |title=Gascoigne's Poses |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/450770 |journal=Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=1–19 |doi=10.2307/450770 |issn=0039-3657|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Gascoigne republished the book with certain additions and deletions two years later under the alternative title, ''The Posies of George Gascoigne, Esquire''. The new edition contains three new dedicatory epistles, signed by Gascoigne, which apologise for the offence that the original edition had caused. This effort failed, however, as the book was also ruled offensive and likewise seized.

==At war in the Netherlands==
When Gascoigne sailed as a [[mercenary|soldier of fortune]] to the [[Low Countries]] in 1572, his ship was driven by stress of weather to [[Brielle]], which luckily for him had just fallen into the hands of the Dutch. He obtained a captain's commission, and took an active part in the campaigns of the next two years including the [[Siege of Middelburg (1572–1574)|Middelburg siege]], during which he acquired a profound dislike of the Dutch, and a great admiration for [[William I of Orange|William of Orange]], who had personally intervened on his behalf in a quarrel with his colonel, and secured him against the suspicion caused by his clandestine visits to a lady at [[the Hague]].

[[File:Houghton - Typ 605.11.853 The noble art of venerie or hunting, pg 89.jpg|thumb|1611 edition of ''The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting'', translated by Gascoigne and printed by [[Thomas Purfoot (senior)|Thomas Purfoot]]]]
Taken prisoner after the evacuation of [[Valkenburg, South Holland|Valkenburg]] by English troops during the [[Siege of Leiden]], he was sent to England in the autumn of 1574. He dedicated to [[Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton|Lord Grey de Wilton]] the story of his adventures, ''The Fruites of Warres'' (printed in the edition of 1575) and ''Gascoigne's Voyage into Hollande.'' In 1575 he had a share in devising the [[masque]]s, published in the next year as ''[[The Princely Pleasure|The Princely Pleasures at the Courte at Kenelworth]]'', written to celebrate the queen's 1575 visit to the [[Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester|Earl of Leicester]] at [[Kenilworth Castle]].<ref>Kightly, Charles. [https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/blog/articles/queen-elizabeth-and-robert-dudley "Queen Elizabeth and Robert Dudley – the real story"], English Heritage, 2 February 2022.</ref> At [[Woodstock, England|Woodstock]] in 1575 he delivered a prose speech before [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth]], and was present at a reading of the ''Pleasant Tale of Hemetes the Hermit,'' a brief romance, probably written by the queen's host, [[Henry Lee of Ditchley|Sir Henry Lee]]. At the queen's annual gift exchange with members of her court the following New Year's, Gascoigne gave her a manuscript of ''Hemetes'' which he had translated into Latin, Italian, and French. Its frontispiece shows the Queen rewarding the kneeling poet with an accolade and a purse; its motto, "Tam Marti, quam Mercurio", indicates that he will serve her as a soldier, as a scholar-poet, or as both. He also drew three emblems, with accompanying text in the three other languages.<ref>Hamrick, "'Set in Portraiture'"</ref> He also translated Jacques du Fouilloux's ''La Venerie'' (1561) into English as ''The Noble Arte of Venerie or Hunting'' (1575) which was printed together with [[George Turberville]]'s ''The Book of Falconrie or Hawking'' and is thus sometimes misattributed to Turberville though in fact it was a work by Gascoigne.

==Later writings and influences==
Most of his works were published during the last years of his life after his return from the wars. He died in [[Stamford, Lincolnshire|Stamford]] in [[Lincolnshire]] on 7 October 1577 and was buried on 13 October in the graveyard of [[St Mary's Church, Stamford]].<ref>Ronald Binns, ''Gascoigne: The Life of a Tudor Poet'' (York: Zoilus Press, 2021), p. 470. </ref> 

Gascoigne's theory of metrical composition is explained in a short critical treatise, "Certayne notes of instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati", prefixed to his ''Posies'' (1575). He acknowledged [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]] as his master, and differed from the earlier poets of the school of [[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]], and [[Thomas Wyatt (poet)|Thomas Wyatt]] chiefly in the greater smoothness and sweetness of his verse. In this text, Gascoigne emphasises the importance of 'invention' in writing a poem: "the rule of invention, which of all other rules is most to be marked".<ref> George Gascoigne, 'Certayne Notes of Instruction', ''Sidney's 'The Defence of Poesy' and Selected Renaissance Literary Criticism'', ed. by Gavin Alexander (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 238. </ref>

==See also==
{{portal|Poetry}}
* [[Canons of Elizabethan poetry]]
* ''[[Good Morrow]]e'', poem by Gascoigne set to music by Sir [[Edward Elgar]], 1929
* Gillian Austen, "George Gascoigne", ''Studies in Renaissance Literature'', 24, D.S. Brewer, 2008
* G. W. Pigman, ''George Gascoigne, A Hundredth Sundrie Flowres 1573'', Oxford, 2000
* Ronald Binns, ''Gascoigne: The Life of a Tudor Poet'', York: Zoilus Press, 2021 {{ISBN|9781999735944}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|30em}}

==References==
* Cunliffe, John W. ''George Gascoigne: The Posies.'' (originally published 1907, reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1969).
* Cunliffe, John. W. ''Supposes and Jocasta: Two Plays Translated from the Italian, the first by Geo. Gascoigne and the second by Geo. Gascoigne and F. Kwinwelmersh'' (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1906).
* Prouty, C.T. ''George Gascoigne's A Hundredth Sundrie Flowres''. (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1942).
* Ward, B.M. ''A Hundredth Sundrie Flowres From the Original Edition of 1573''. (1928; reprinted with supplementary materials under the editorship of Ruth Loyd Miller, Minos Publish Co., 1975).

;Attribution
* {{EB1911|wstitle=Gascoigne, George |volume=11|pages=493–494}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=George Gascoigne}}
* {{Librivox author |id=3462}}
* [http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/gascbib.htm The Works of George Gascoigne at Luminarium] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210903132145/http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/gascbib.htm |date=3 September 2021 }}
* [https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=GASCOIGNE-SEMINAR The Gascoigne Seminar] "is a discussion list for scholars working on George Gascoigne and other early Elizabethan writers, to facilitate the exchange of ideas about the generation at the very beginning of the English literary renaissance.”
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Gascoigne, George |volume=11|pages=493–494|short=1}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gascoigne, George}}
[[Category:1530s births]]
[[Category:1577 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:16th-century English poets]]
[[Category:16th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:People from Bedford]]
[[Category:English prisoners and detainees]]
[[Category:English MPs 1558]]
[[Category:English MPs 1559]]
[[Category:English male poets]]
[[Category:Members of Gray's Inn]]
[[Category:People from Cardington, Bedfordshire]]