Thomas Lodge
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Who was Thomas Lodge?
Thomas Lodge (c. 1557–1625) was an English poet, dramatist, and prose writer, representative of the Elizabethan Age. He is most known for his prose romance Rosalynde, which served as the source for William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Lodge was the son of Sir Thomas Lodge, a lord mayor of London.
Lodge's works include Scillaes Metamorphosis, Phillis, and A Fig for Momus, and he co-authored A Looking Glasse for London and England with Robert Greene. To escape poverty, Lodge became a Roman Catholic and later earned degrees in medicine. He practiced as a physician in London and Brussels and wrote A Treatise of the Plague.
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When and where did Thomas Lodge live?
Thomas Lodge, an English poet, dramatist, and prose writer, was born in London around 1557 and died there in 1625. He was the son of Sir Thomas Lodge, a lord mayor of London. Lodge studied at Merchant Taylors’ School and Trinity College, Oxford, before studying law at Lincoln’s Inn, London, in 1578. Later in life, he graduated in medicine from the University of Avignon in 1598 and received another M.D. degree from Oxford in 1602. He practiced medicine in London and Brussels. Lodge is remembered for Rosalynde, a prose romance that served as the source for Shakespeare's As You Like It.
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What kinds of works did Thomas Lodge write?
Thomas Lodge, a versatile English writer of the Elizabethan Age, is known for poetry, plays, and prose. His notable works include the prose romance Rosalynde, the source for Shakespeare's As You Like It, and A Margarite of America, a romance blending Senecan motives and Arcadian themes. Lodge's Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589) is an early English poem that creatively retells a classical story, influencing Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. He also wrote moralizing pamphlets, such as Wits Miserie, and co-authored the play A Looking Glasse for London and England with Robert Greene.
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What is Thomas Lodge best known for?
Thomas Lodge (c. 1557–1625) was an English poet, dramatist, and prose writer known for his versatility during the Elizabethan Age. He is best known for the prose romance Rosalynde, which served as the source for William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Lodge's Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589) influenced Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. Lodge also introduced classical satires and verse epistles into English literature in A Fig for Momus (1595).
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How did Thomas Lodge influence English literature?
Thomas Lodge was an English poet, dramatist, and prose writer known for his versatility during the Elizabethan Age. Lodge's Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589) was one of the first English poems to creatively retell a classical story, influencing Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. In A Fig for Momus (1595), Lodge introduced classical satires and verse epistles into English literature. His prose romance Rosalynde (1590) served as the source for Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Lodge's writings, including Wits Miserie and An Alarum Against Usurers, captured London life, similar to Thomas Nashe.
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What other jobs or roles did Thomas Lodge have besides being a writer?
Thomas Lodge was not only an English poet, dramatist, and prose writer. He also studied law at Lincoln’s Inn in London in 1578. Lodge participated in freebooting voyages to the Canary Islands in 1588 and to South America in 1591 to escape poverty. Later, in 1597, he became a Roman Catholic and graduated in medicine from the University of Avignon in 1598. He practiced medicine in London and Brussels and became a distinguished physician in London. Lodge died in 1625 while fighting the plague.
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Thomas Lodge (born c. 1557, London?, England—died 1625, London) was an English poet, dramatist, and prose writer whose innovative versatility typified the Elizabethan Age. He is best remembered for the prose romance Rosalynde, the source of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
He was the son of Sir Thomas Lodge, who was lord mayor of London in 1562. The younger Lodge was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and at Trinity College, Oxford, and he studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, London, in 1578. Lodge’s earliest work was an anonymous pamphlet (c. 1579) in reply to Stephen Gosson’s attack on stage plays. His next work, An Alarum Against Usurers (1584), exposed the ways in which moneylenders lured young heirs into extravagance and debt. He then engaged in varied literary activity for a number of years.
His Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589), an Ovidian verse fable, is one of the earliest English poems to retell a classical story with imaginative embellishments, and it strongly influenced Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. Lodge’s Phillis (1593) contains amorous sonnets and pastoral eclogues from French and Italian originals. In A Fig for Momus (1595), he introduced classical satires and verse epistles (modeled after those of Juvenal and Horace) into English literature for the first time. Aside from Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie (1590), which provided the plot for Shakespeare’s comedy, Lodge’s most important romance was A Margarite of America (1596), which combines Senecan motives and Arcadian romance in an improbable love story between a Peruvian prince and a daughter of the king of Muscovy. His other romances are chiefly notable for the fine lyric poems scattered through them. Lodge continued to write moralizing pamphlets such as Wits Miserie, and the Worlds Madnesse (1596), and in 1594 he published two plays: The Wounds of Civill War and (with Robert Greene) A Looking Glasse for London and England.
To escape poverty Lodge took part in unprofitable freebooting voyages to the Canary Islands in 1588 and to South America in 1591. In 1597 he became a Roman Catholic, and he graduated in medicine from the University of Avignon in 1598. He received another M.D. degree from Oxford in 1602 and thereafter practiced medicine in London and in Brussels, where he took refuge as a recusant following exposure of the Gunpowder Plot (1605). He was back in England by 1612, became a distinguished physician in London, and died there while fighting the plague in 1625. His later works include A Treatise of the Plague (1603) and two major translations—The Famous and Memorable Works of Josephus (1602) and The Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (1614), both of which went through many editions.
Much of Lodge’s work before 1600 was surreptitious translation, but in this regard he shows a real talent for creative selection and assimilation from classical, French, and Italian sources. His reputation remains based chiefly on his poetry and his romances. Of his pamphlets, Wits Miserie and the Alarum are memorable for their cameos of London life, reminiscent of the writings of Thomas Nashe.