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GOSSON, STEPHEN (1554-1624)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 269 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GOSSON, See also:STEPHEN (1554-1624) , See also:English satirist, was baptized at St See also:George's, See also:Canterbury, on the 17th of See also:April 1554. He entered Corpus Christi See also:College, See also:Oxford, 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 he went to See also:London. In 1598 See also:Francis See also:Meres in his Palladis Tamia mentions him with See also:Sidney, See also:Spenser, See also:Abraham See also:Fraunce and others among the " best for pastorall," but no pastorals of his are extant. He is said to have been an actor, and by his own See also:confession he wrote plays, for he speaks of Catilines Conspiracies as a " See also:Pig of mine own Sowe." To this See also:play and some others, on See also:account of their moral intention, he extends See also:indulgence in the See also:general condemnation of See also:stage plays contained in his Schoole of Abuse, containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters and such like Caterpillars of the See also:Commonwealth (1579). The euphuistic See also:style of this pamphlet and its ostentatious display of learning were in the See also:taste of the See also:time, and do not necessarily imply insincerity. Gosson justified his attack by considerations of the disorder which the love of See also:melodrama and of vulgar See also:comedy was introducing into the social See also:life of London. It was not only by extremists like Gosson that these abuses were recognized. Spenser, in his Teares of the See also:Muses (1591), laments the same evils, although only in general terms. The See also:tract was dedicated to See also:Sir See also:Philip Sidney, who seems not unnaturally to have resented being connected with a pamphlet which opened with a comprehensive denunciation of poets, for Spenser, See also:writing to See also:Gabriel See also:Harvey (Oct. 16, 1579) of the See also:dedication, says the author " was for hys labor scorned." He dedicated, however, a second tract, The Ephemerides of Phialo . . . and A See also:Short A pologie of the Schoole of Abuse, to Sidney on Oct. 28th, 1579.

Gosson's abuse of poets seems to have had a large See also:

share in inducing Sidney to write his Apologie for Poetrie, which probably See also:dates from 1581. After the publication of the Schoole of Abuse Gosson retired into the See also:country, where he acted as See also:tutor to the sons of a See also:gentleman (Plays Confuted. " To the Reader," 1582). See also:Anthony a See also:Wood places this earlier and assigns the termination of his tutorship indirectly to his animosity against the stage, which apparently wearied his See also:patron of his See also:company. The publication of his polemic provoked many retorts, the most formidable of which was See also:Thomas See also:Lodge's See also:Defence of Playes (158o). The players themselves retaliated by reviving Gosson's own plays. Gosson replied to his various opponents in 1582 by his Playes Confuted in Five Actions, dedicated to Sir Francis See also:Walsingham. Meanwhile he had taken orders, was made lecturer of the See also:parish See also:church at See also:Stepney (1585), and was presented by the See also:queen to the rectory of See also:Great Wigborough, See also:Essex, which he exchanged in 1600 for St Botolph's, Bishopsgate. He died on the 13th of See also:February 1624. PleasantQuippes for Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen (1595), a coarse satiric poem, is also ascribed to Gosson. The Schoole of Abuse and Apologie were edited (1868) by Prof. E.

See also:

Arber in his English Reprints. Two poems of Gosson's are included.

End of Article: GOSSON, STEPHEN (1554-1624)

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