Abraham Fraunce
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Abraham Fraunce (c. 1558/1560 – c. 1592/1593) was an English poet.


Life

A native of
Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...
, he was born between 1558 and 1560. His name appears in a list of pupils of
Shrewsbury School Shrewsbury School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13 –18) in Shrewsbury. Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by Royal Charter, it was originally a boarding school for boys; girls have been admitted into ...
in January 1571, and he joined
St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The ...
, in 1576, becoming a fellow in 1580/1. His
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
comedy, ''Victoria'', dedicated to Sir
Philip Sidney Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...
, was probably written at
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, where he remained until he had taken his M.A. degree in 1583. He was called to the
bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar ( ...
at
Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and W ...
in 1588, and then apparently practised as a barrister in the court of the Welsh marches. After the death of his patron, Sidney, Fraunce was protected by Sidney's sister, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. His last work was published in 1592. According to the 19th-century antiquary Joseph Hunter in his ''Chorus Vatum'', in 1633 Fraunce wrote an '' Epithalamium'' in honour of the marriage of Lady Magdalen Egerton, seventh daughter of the Earl of Bridgwater, in whose service he may have been; thus, it was long assumed that Fraunce died in or after 1633. More recent scholarship, however, places Fraunce's death in 1592 or 1593 and attributes the Cutler-Egerton epithalamium to Abraham Darcie.


Works

His works are: * ''The Lamentations of Amintas for the death of Phyllis'' (1587), a version in English hexameters of his friend, Thomas Watson's, Latin ''Amyntas'' * ''The Lawiers Logike, exemplifying the praecepts of Logike by the practise of the common Lawe'' (1585) * ''The Arcadian Rhetorike'' (1588) * ''Abrahami Fransi Insignium, Armorum ... explicatio'' (1588) * ''The Countess of Pembroke's Yvychurch'' (1591/2), containing a translation of Tasso's ''Aminta'', a reprint of his earlier version of Watson * ''The Lamentation of Corydon for the love of Alexis'' (
Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
,
eclogue An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics. Overview The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , wh ...
II), a short translation from
Heliodorus Heliodorus is a Greek name meaning "Gift of the Sun". Several persons named Heliodorus are known to us from ancient times, the best known of which are: *Heliodorus (minister) a minister of Seleucus IV Philopator c. 175 BC *Heliodorus of Athen ...
, and, in the third part (1592) "Aminta's Dale," a collection of "conceited tales" supposed to be related by the nymphs of Ivychurch * ''The Countess of Pembroke's Emanuell'' (1591) * The Third Part of Pembroke's ''Ivychurch'', entitled ''Aminta's Dale'' (1592) *
Victoria, a Latin Comedy
' (written before or in 1583; not published until 1906). It is a translation of Luigi Pasqualigo's play, ''Il Fedele''. The ''Arcadian Rhetorike'' owes much to earlier critical treatises, but has a special interest from its references to
Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for '' The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen o ...
, and Fraunce quotes from the ''Faerie Queene'' a year before the publication of the first books. In ''Colin Clouts Come Home Again'', Spenser speaks of Fraunce as Corydon, on account of his translations of Virgil's second eclogue. His poems are written in classical metres, and he was regarded by his contemporaries as the best exponent of
Gabriel Harvey Gabriel Harvey (c. 1552/3 – 1631) was an English writer. Harvey was a notable scholar, whose reputation suffered from his quarrel with Thomas Nashe. Henry Morley, writing in the ''Fortnightly Review'' (March 1869), has argued that Harvey's L ...
's theory. Even Thomas Nashe had a good word for "sweete Master Fraunce". ''The Countess of Pembroke's Emanuell, hexameters on the nativity and passion of Christ'', with versions of some psalms, were reprinted by Alexander Grosart in the third volume of his ''Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library'' (1872). Joseph Hunter in his ''Chorus Vatum'' stated that five of Fraunce's songs were included in Sidney's '' Astrophel and Stella'', but these should probably be attributed not to Fraunce, but to
Thomas Campion Thomas Campion (sometimes spelled Campian; 12 February 1567 – 1 March 1620) was an English composer, poet, and physician. He was born in London, educated at Cambridge, studied law in Gray's inn. He wrote over a hundred lute songs, masques ...
. See a life prefixed to the transcription of a manuscript Latin comedy by Fraunce, ''Victoria'', by Professor GC Moore Smith, published in W Bang's ''Materialien zur Kunde des älteren Englischen Dramas'', vol. xiv, 1906. Dana Sutton argues that Fraunce may be the author of
Hymenaeus
' (1578).


Further reading

* William Barker, "Abraham Fraunce (circa 1560 – 1592 or 1593)," ''The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 236: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500–1660, First Series'', Detroit: Gale, 2001, pp. 140–156. * G. C. Moore Smith, ed., ''Victoria: A Latin Comedy'', by Abraham Fraunce, Louvain, Belgium: A. Uystpruyst, 1906. * Mary M. McCormick, ed., "A Critical Edition of Abraham Fraunce's 'The Sheapheardes Logike' and 'Twooe General Discourses,'" dissertation, St. Louis University, 1968.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fraunce, Abraham 16th-century births 1590s deaths 16th-century English poets Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge People educated at Shrewsbury School Writers from Shropshire Year of birth missing Members of Gray's Inn English male poets