Thomas Shadwell
| Thomas Shadwell | |
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| Born | 1642 Stanton Hall, Norfolk, England |
| Died | 19 November 1692 London, England |
| Occupation | poet, playwright |
| Alma mater | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge |
| Notable works | Epsom Wells; Squire of Alsatia |
| Notable awards | poet laureate |
Thomas Shadwell (c. 1642 – 19 November 1692) was an English poet and playwright who was appointed poet laureate in 1689.
Shadwell was born at Broomhill, Norfolk, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and joined the Middle Temple. At the Whig triumph in 1688, he superseded John Dryden as poet laureate and historiographer royal. He died at Chelsea on 19 November 1692. He was buried in Chelsea Old Church, but his tomb was destroyed by wartime bombing; however a memorial to him survives in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
In 1668 he produced a prose comedy, The Sullen Lovers, or the Impertinents, based on Les Fâcheux by Molière, and written in open imitation of Ben Jonson's comedy of humours. His best plays are Epsom Wells (1672), for which Sir Charles Sedley wrote a prologue, and the Squire of Alsatia (1688). Alsatia was the cant name for the Whitefriars area of London, then a kind of sanctuary for persons liable to arrest, and the play represents, in dialogue full of the local argot, the adventures of a young heir who falls into the hands of the sharpers there.
For fourteen years from the production of his first comedy to his memorable encounter with John Dryden, Shadwell produced a play nearly every year. These productions display a hatred of sham, and a rough but honest moral purpose. Although bawdy, they present a vivid picture of contemporary manners.
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