Lydgate, John

Lydgate, John

▪ English writer
born c. 1370, Lidgate, Suffolk, Eng.
died c. 1450, Bury St. Edmunds?
 English poet, known principally for long moralistic and devotional works.

      In his Testament Lydgate says that while still a boy he became a novice in the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, where he became a priest in 1397. He spent some time in London and Paris; but from 1415 he was mainly at Bury, except during 1421–32 when he was prior of Hatfield Broad Oak in Essex.

 Lydgate had few peers in his sheer productiveness; 145,000 lines of his verse survive. His only prose work, The Serpent of Division (1422), an account of Julius Caesar, is brief. His poems vary from vast narratives such as The Troy Book and The Falle of Princis to occasional poems of a few lines. Of the longer poems, one translated from the French, the allegory Reason and Sensuality (c. 1408) on the theme of chastity, contains fresh and charming descriptions of nature, in well-handled couplets. The Troy Book, begun in 1412 at the command of the prince of Wales, later Henry V, and finished in 1421, is a rendering of Guido delle Colonne's Historia troiana. It was followed by The Siege of Thebes, in which the main story is drawn from a lost French romance, embellished by features from Boccaccio.

      Lydgate admired the work of Chaucer intensely and imitated his versification. In 1426 Lydgate translated Guillaume de Deguilleville's Le Pèlerinage de la vie humaine as The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, a stern allegory; between 1431 and 1438 he was occupied with The Falle of Princis, translated into Chaucerian rhyme royal from a French version of Boccaccio's work. He also wrote love allegories such as The Complaint of the Black Knight and The Temple of Glass, saints' lives, versions of Aesop's fables, many poems commissioned for special occasions, and both religious and secular lyrics.

      His work is uneven in quality, and the proportion of good poetry is small. Yet with all his faults, Lydgate at his best wrote graceful and telling lines. His reputation long equalled Chaucer's, and his work exercised immense influence for nearly a century.

Additional Reading
Lois A. Ebin, John Lydgate (1985); Derek Pearsall, John Lydgate (1371–1449): A Bio-Bibliography (1997); Maura Nolan, John Lydgate and the Making of Public Culture (2005); Larry Scanlon and James Simpson (eds.), John Lydgate: Poetry, Culture, and Lancastrian England (2006).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Lydgate, John — • Writer, born at Lydgate, Suffolk, about 1370; d. probably about 1450. He entered the Benedictine abbey at Bury when fifteen and may have been educated earlier at the school of the Benedictine monks there and have been afterwards at the… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • Lydgate, John — (ca. 1370–ca. 1449)    John Lydgate was a Benedictine monk from Bury Saint Edmunds who wrote more poetry than any other known medieval English poet.He was much praised by his contemporaries and by writers in the years immediately following his… …   Encyclopedia of medieval literature

  • Lydgate,John — Lyd·gate (lĭdʹgāt , gət), John. 1370? 1451?. English poet who is best known for his long narrative works. * * * …   Universalium

  • LYDGATE, JOHN —    an early English poet; was a monk of Bury St. Edmunds in the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries; was a teacher of rhetoric as well as a poet, and a man of some note in his day …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Lydgate, John — (1370? 1451?)    Poet, b. in Suffolk, was ordained a priest in 1397. After studying at Oxf., Paris, and Padua, he taught literature in his monastery at Bury St. Edmunds. He appears to have been a bright, clear minded, earnest man, with a love of… …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • Lydgate, John — (?1370 ?1451)    He was born at Lidgate, Suffolk, and at fifteen was a novice in the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, where he became a priest in 1397. He knew Chaucer, who was his inspiration as a poet. That he knew what it was like to be… …   British and Irish poets

  • John Lydgate — John Lydgate. John Lydgate (cerca 1370 1451), monje y poeta inglés, nacido en Lidgate, Suffolk, Inglaterra, y muerto en Bury Saint Edmunds, Suffolk. Contenido …   Wikipedia Español

  • Lydgate — John Lydgate John Lydgate (* um 1370 in Lidgate, Suffolk; † um 1451) war ein englischer Mönch und Dichter. Im Alter von fünfzehn Jahren wurde er im Benediktinerkonvent zu Bury St. Edmunds aufgenommen und eignete sich dort sowie vermutlich an den… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • LYDGATE (J.) — LYDGATE JOHN (1370 env. env. 1450) De l’œuvre très volumineuse de ce moine bénédictin, cent quarante cinq mille vers ont été conservés. Ses poèmes vont de vastes narrations, comme Le Livre de Troie (The Troy Book ) et La Chute des princes (The… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

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