Leonard Digges (; 1588 – 7 April 1635) was a
Hispanist and minor poet,
a younger son of the astronomer
Thomas Digges
Thomas Digges (; c. 1546 – 24 August 1595) was an English mathematician and astronomer. He was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many s ...
(1545–95) and younger brother of Sir
Dudley Digges
Sir Dudley Digges (19 May 1583 – 18 March 1639) was an English diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1610 and 1629. Digges was also a "Virginia adventurer," an investor who ventured his capital in the Virginia ...
(1583–1639). After his father's death in 1595, his mother married Thomas Russell of
Alderminster
Alderminster is a village and civil parish on the River Stour about south of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The village is on the A3400 road between Stratford-upon-Avon and Shipston-on-Stour. The 2011 Census recorded the parish ...
, now in
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
, who was named by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
as one of the two overseers of his will. There are varying opinions about the extent to which the young Leonard Digges might have been influenced in his choice of profession by his stepfather's association with Shakespeare; disagreements about whether he was or was not personally acquainted with the playwright have in recent years eclipsed discussion of the work of Digges himself.
Life
Leonard Digges matriculated at
University College, Oxford
University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the univer ...
in 1603, the year of his mother's remarriage, and graduated BA in 1606.
[ This was followed by a period of study abroad. He may have traveled to Spain with fellow Hispanist ]James Mabbe
James Mabbe or Mab (1572–1642) was an English scholar, translator, and poet, and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He was involved in translations from Spanish, notably of the Picaresque novel by Mateo Alemán, ''Guzmán de Alfarache'', in 1 ...
, whom he knew from Oxford, for he wrote a note on the flyleaf of a book which Mabbe sent from Madrid to Will Baker, also a friend from Oxford days. The book was a copy of ''Rimas'' by Lope de Vega
Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio ( , ; 25 November 156227 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Age of Baroque literature. His reputation in the world of Spanish literature ...
(published in 1613); it still survives, in the library of Balliol College
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
. Digges's inscription reads:
::Will Baker: Knowinge
::that Mr Mab: was to
::sende you this Booke
::of sonets, wch with Spaniards
::here is accounted of their
::lope de Vega as in Englande
::wee sholde of or: Will
::Shakespeare. I colde not
::but insert thus much to
::you, that if you like
::him not, you muste neuer
::neuer reade Spanishe Poet
:::::Leo:Digges
Anthony à Wood
Anthony Wood (17 December 1632 – 28 November 1695), who styled himself Anthony à Wood in his later writings, was an English antiquary. He was responsible for a celebrated ''Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of Oxon''.
Early life
Anthony W ...
said of Leonard Digges that he "was esteemed by those who knew him in Univ.coll. a great master of the English language, a perfect understander of the French and Spanish, a good poet, and no mean orator".[Wood, Anthony]
''Athenae Oxonienses: an Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford from 1500 to 1690''
published in London in 1692. Wood says also that "upon his supplication made to the venerable convocation" of University College Oxford, Digges was made M.A. in 1626, "in consideration that he had spent many years in good letters in transmarine universities". He lived in the College from then until his death in 1635, and was buried in the College chapel (no longer standing).
Works
Digges translated Claudian
Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost ent ...
's ''The Rape of Proserpine'' (printed 1617
Events
January–June
* February 27 – The Treaty of Stolbovo ends the Ingrian War between Sweden and Russia. Sweden gains Ingria and Kexholm.
* April 14 – Second Battle of Playa Honda: The Spanish navy defeats a Dutch f ...
). His translation of ''Varia fortuna de soldado Píndaro'', by Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, was published in 1622
Events
January–May
* January 7 – The Holy Roman Empire and Transylvania sign the Peace of Nikolsburg.
* February 8 – King James I of England dissolves the English Parliament.
* March 12 – Ignatius of Loyola, F ...
as ''Gerardo, the Unfortunate Spaniard'', and was used by John Fletcher as a source for his plays ''The Spanish Curate
''The Spanish Curate'' is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. It premiered on the stage in 1622, and was first published in 1647.
Date and source
The play was licensed for production by Sir ...
'' and ''The Maid in the Mill
''The Maid in the Mill'' is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Fletcher and William Rowley. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.
Performance
The play was licensed for performance ...
''.
Digges's publisher was Edward Blount
Edward Blount (or Blunt) (1562–1632) was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras, noted for his publication, in conjunction with William and Isaac Jaggard, of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in 1623.
H ...
, a close friend of Mabbe's and one of the syndicate which published Shakespeare's First Folio
''Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies'' is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is cons ...
in 1623. Digges and Mabbe both contributed prefatory poems to the Folio, as did Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...
– also published by Blount. The previous year, Digges and Jonson had both contributed commendatory verse
The epideictic oratory, also called ceremonial oratory, or praise-and-blame rhetoric, is one of the three branches, or "species" (eidē), of rhetoric as outlined in Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', to be used to praise or blame during ceremonies.
Origin ...
s to a work translated by Mabbe and published by Blount.[Freehafer, John, "Leonard Digges, Ben Jonson, and the Beginning of Shakespeare Idolatry", ''Shakespeare Quarterly'', Vol. 21, No. 1 (Winter, 1970), pp. 63-75] Commendatory verses by Digges were also included in an edition of Shakespeare's ''Poems'', published by John Benson in 1640, five years after Digges had died. Freehafer suggests that since these verses refer to Shakespeare's plays rather than to his poems, they may have been intended for the Second Folio
The Second Folio is the 1632 edition of the collected plays of William Shakespeare. It follows the First Folio of 1623. Much language was updated in the Second Folio and there are almost 1,700 changes.
The major partners in the First Folio had ...
.[
]
References
External links
First Folio Digital Resource
- Leeds University Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Digges, Leonard
1588 births
1635 deaths
17th-century English poets
17th-century male writers
People associated with Shakespeare
Spanish–English translators
British Hispanists
English male dramatists and playwrights
English male poets