George Wither
| George Wither kk | |
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George Wither
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| Born | 11 June 1588 O.S. Bentworth, Hampshire |
| Died | 2 May 1667 (aged 78) O.S. London |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | English |
| Genre | Satire |
| Notable works | Abuses Stript and Whipt, The Shepheard's Hunting |
George Wither (11 June 1588 O.S. (21 June 1588 NS) – 2 May 1667 O.S. (12 May 1667 NS)) was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist. He was a prolific writer who adopted a deliberate plainness of style; he was several times imprisoned. C. V. Wedgwood wrote "every so often in the barren acres of his verse is a stretch enlivened by real wit and observation, or fired with a sudden intensity of feeling".
Wither has been classified as a Spenserian, with Michael Drayton, Giles Fletcher, Phineas Fletcher, and Henry More. The early Jacobean Spenserians were generally republican rather than imperial (at least in terms of ancient Rome), of the "country party" rather than the "court party", nostalgic for Elizabeth I, and in favour of the older ornateness rather than the plain style of James I.
According to Christopher Hill:
Or again:
Where Hill identifies connections via the aristocratic patrons and politics, Alastair Fowler takes Drayton to be the poetic centre of a group, which besides Wither comprised Browne, John Davies of Hereford, William Drummond of Hawthornden, George Sandys and Joshua Sylvester.
From c.1640 onwards, Wither assumed an overtly prophetic voice. His wide range of publication, in prose as well as various poetic genres over nearly half a century, has left a very uneven impression of his interests and affected his poetic reputation. George Gilfillan wrote that "Wither was a man of real genius, but seems to have been partially insane".Herbert Grierson found something to praise in early love poems, but spoke of "endless diffuse didactic and pious poems, if they can be called poems".
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Wikipedia