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FLETCHER, PHINEAS (1582-1650)

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 499 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FLETCHER, PHINEAS (1582-1650) , See also:English poet, See also:elder son of Dr See also:Giles Fletcher, and See also:brother of Giles the younger, noticed above, was See also:born at See also:Cranbrook, See also:Kent, and was baptized on the 8th of See also:April 1582. He was admitted a See also:scholar of See also:Eton, and in 'Coo entered See also:King's See also:College, See also:Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1604, and M.A. in 1608, and was one of the contributors to Sorrow's Joy (1603). His See also:pastoral See also:drama, Sicelides or Piscatory (pr. 1631) was written (1614) for performance before See also:James I., but only produced after the king's departure at King's College. He had been ordained See also:priest and before 1611 became a See also:fellow of his college, but he See also:left Cambridge before 1616, apparently because certain emoluments were refused him. He became See also:chaplain to See also:Sir See also:Henry See also:Willoughby, who presented him in 1621 to the rectory of Hilgay, See also:Norfolk, where he married and spent the See also:rest of his See also:life. In 1627 he published Locustae, vel See also:Pietas Jesuitica. The Locusts or Apollyonists, two parallel poems in Latin and English furiously attacking the See also:Jesuits. Dr See also:Grosart saw in this See also:work one of the See also:sources of See also:Milton's conception of Satan. Next See also:year appeared an erotic poem, Brittains See also:Ida, with See also:Edmund See also:Spenser's name on the See also:title-See also:page. It is certainly not by Spenser, and is printed by Dr Grosart with the See also:works of Phineas Fletcher.

Sicelides, a See also:

play acted at King's College in 1614, was printed in 1631. In 1632 appeared two theological See also:prose See also:treatises, The Way to Blessedness and Joy in Tribulation, and in 1633 his magnum See also:opus, The See also:Purple See also:Island. The See also:book was dedicated to his friend See also:Edward See also:Benlowes, and included his Piscatorie Eclags and other Poetical Miscellanies. He died in 1650, his will being proved by his widow on the 13th of See also:December of that year. The Purple Island, or the Isle of See also:Man, is a poem in twelve cantos describing in cumbrous See also:allegory the physiological structure of the human See also:body and the mind of man. The intellectual qualities are personified, while the See also:veins are See also:rivers, the bones the mountains of the island, the whole See also:analogy being worked out with See also:great ingenuity. The manner of Spenser is preserved throughout, but Fletcher never lost sight of his moral aim to lose himself in digressions like those of the Faerie Queene. What he gains in unity of See also:design, however, he more than loses in human See also:interest and See also:action. The See also:chief See also:charm of the poem lies in its descriptions of rural scenery. The Piscatory Eclogues are pastorals the characters of which are represented as See also:fisher boys on the See also:banks of the See also:Cam, and are interesting for the See also:light they See also:cast .on the See also:biography of the poet himself (Thyrsil) and his See also:father (Thelgon). The See also:poetry of Phineas Fletcher has not the sublimity sometimes reached by his brother Giles. The mannerisms are more pronounced and the conceits more far-fetched, but the See also:verse is fluent, and lacks neither See also:colour nor See also:music.

A See also:

complete edition of his works (4 vols.) was privately printed by Dr A. B. Grosart (See also:Fuller Worthies Library, 1869).

End of Article: FLETCHER, PHINEAS (1582-1650)

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