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Sir William Davenant

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Sir William Davenant (February 28, 1606 – April 7, 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras, and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and the Interregnum.

[edit] Biography

Davenant was born in late February, 1606 in Oxford, the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Davenant, proprietor of the Crown Tavern (or Crown Inn) and mayor of Oxford. He was the godson of William Shakespeare, who had stayed frequently at the Crown during his travels between London and Stratford-upon-Avon. It was even rumored that he was the Bard's biological son as well. However, it seems that this rumor stemmed from a comment attributed to Davenant by Samuel Butler: "It seemed to him [Davenant] that he writ with the very same spirit that Shakespeare [did], and seemed content enough to be called his son."

He attended Lincoln College, Oxford, for a while in about 1620, but left before gaining any degree.

Following the death of Ben Jonson in 1637, Davenant was named Poet Laureate in 1638. He was a supporter of King Charles I in the English Civil War. In 1641, he was declared guilty of high treason but was, ironically, knighted two years later by the king following the battle of Gloucester. He was then appointed Emissary to France in 1645 and treasurer of the colony of Virginia in 1649 by Charles II. The following year, he was made lieutenant governor of Maryland, but was captured at sea, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. He spent all of 1651 in the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned at the time Gondibert was written. Having been released in 1652, he was only pardoned in 1654. In order to avoid the strict laws of censorship in force in all public places at the time, he turned a room of his home, Rutland House, into a private theatre where his works, and that of others considered seditious, could be performed. A performance of his The Siege of Rhodes at Rutland House in 1656 is considered to be the first performance of an English opera, and also included England's first known professional actress, Mrs. Coleman. [1]

Davenant once again found himself in legal trouble in 1659, when he was imprisoned for his part in Sir George Booth's uprising at Cheshire. He was released the same year though and fled to France. He had returned to England sometime before the initial production of his adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, written with John Dryden, who would be named the next Laureate in 1670.

After suffering from syphilis for nearly four decades, he died in London on April 7, 1668, shortly after his final play, The Man's the Master, was first performed. He is buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey where the inscription on his tablet reads "O rare Sir William Davenant." It has been noted that the original inscription on Ben Jonson's tablet, which was already removed by the time Davenant died, was "Rare Ben," which was the name Shakespeare supposedly had for Jonson.

Nine of his works, though they were previously licensed or produced in London during his life like all of his plays, were finally published in print posthumously. Several of these were included in The Works of Sr William D'avenant Kt., by Henry Herringman in 1673, which was copied from Davenant's own originals.

[edit] Works

[edit] Epic poems and books of poetry

[edit] Panegyrics

  • "A Panegyric to his Excellency the Lord General Monck" (1660), to George Monck
  • "Poem upon his sacred Majesties most happy return to his dominions" (1660), on the Restoration of Charles II
  • "Poem, to the King’s most sacred Majesty" (1663), to Charles II

[edit] Original plays, masques and operas

Listed in chronological order.

[edit] Revisions, adaptations and other productions for the stage

[edit] References

  • Terence P. Logan and Denzell S. Smith, eds., The Later Jacobean and Caroline Dramatists: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama, Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1975.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] Biographical

[edit] Poems and texts

Preceded by
Ben Jonson		 English Poet Laureate
1638–1668		 Succeeded by
John Dryden

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William Davenant
William Davenant

Annotations

  • N Alan Bedford on Sun 29 Jun 2003, 06:24pm

    William Davenant (1606-1668) was an English poet and dramatist. There is a biographical article in the 1911 Brittanica on this page: http://58.1911encyclopedia.org/D/DA/DAVENPORT_EDWARD_LOOMIS.htm

    Davenant introduced the opera into Britain in 1656 (evidently, the Puritans did not figure out what an ‘opera’ was,) and he continued with these presentations through the Restoration.

    He was the co-writer, along with Dryden, of the ‘updated’ version of Shakespeare’s Tempest of which kvk noted on 18 March 2003: Pepys only saw Dryden and Davenant

  • N David Quidnunc on Fri 12 Dec 2003, 11:57pm

    “On 21 August 1660 Charles II granted Thomas Killigrew and Davenant a warrant to ‘…erect two companies of players…and to purchase, build, and erect…two houses or theatres with all convenient rooms and other necessaries thereunto appertaining, for the representation of tragedies, comedies, plays, operas, and all other entertainments of that nature…”

    On 12 December 1660, William Davenant received exclusive rights to perform in England nine of Shakespeare’s plays: The Tempest, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, King Lear and Henry VIII, as well as Davenant’s own works.
    http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_se/murray/Restoration/Companies/ThComp.html

    “[T]he patent granted to Davenant by the Lord Chamberlain on December 12, 1660, … ordered [Davenant] ‘to peruse all playes that have been formerly written, and to expunge all Prophanesse and Scurrility from the same, before they be represented or Acted’”
    http://www.indiana.edu/~ias/chartier.html

    Davenant edited Hamlet before presenting the play in August 1661 (with Pepys in the audience). A general description of the changes in the play as Davenant presented it are in the second Web link above, which also has an extensive discussion about plays in written form and how uncomfortable playwrights were in publishing their works that way.

  • N The Bishop on Fri 13 Feb 2004, 11:13pm

    The reason Davenant started making changes to Shakespeare’s plays was that the rival company, Killigrew’s, had obtained the rights to the popular Shakesepearean plays and Davenant was left with the unpopular ones (except for Hamlet, which was a popular play).

  • N vicente on Sun 4 Jul 2004, 03:57am

    It appears SP was one of his first clients.
    “moved to Lisle’s Tennis Court in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; the theater there, which became known as the Duke’s Playhouse, opened in late June 1661. His company became known by a patent of 1663 as the Duke of York’s Players, Killigrew’s more elegantly as His Majesty’s Players. “
    http://oldpoetry.com/author/Sir%20William%20Davenant

  • N dirk on Mon 5 Jul 2004, 01:18am

    Davenant’s warrant

    The warrant King Charles gave to Davenant gave him the permission to “erect two companies of players

  • N Glyn on Wed 15 Sep 2004, 11:30am

    The famous painting of Pepys shows him holding a piece of music that he composed for some poetry of Davenant (presumably this Davenant). So Pepys was a fan of his.

  • N Pauline on Wed 2 Mar 2005, 06:12pm

    Romeo and Juliet
    The first officially recorded production of Romeo and Juliet took place after the Restoration (1660). On 1st March 1662 at Lincoln’s Inn Fields the Duke’s Company performed the play under the direction of Sir William Davenant (1606-68), a poet and playwright who claimed to be Shakespeare’s illegitimate son. Davenant’s text was never published so we do not now how close or removed it was from Shakespeare’s but Jill L. Levenson tells us in her introduction to the Oxford Shakespeare edition that when Davenant received exclusive rights to nine Shakespeare plays, he resolved to reform them and make them ‘fit’ for performance. It seems likely, therefore, that there were some differences between Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Davenant’s. His cast included Henry Harris as Romeo, Mary Saunderson as Juliet and Thomas Betterton in the role of Mercutio.

    from http://www.rsc.org.uk/romeo/about/stage.html

  • N Stolzi on Sun 23 Jul 2006, 11:03pm

    The link in the first annotation is incorrect, it should be

    http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Davenant

    This article again mentions the gossip (which Davenant himself fostered) that he was the child of an amour of a greater dramatic William, Shaxper that is.

  • N Michael Robinson on Mon 11 Dec 2006, 10:05am

    The Pepysian Library contains the following:-

    The works of Sr William D’avenant Kt consisting of those which were formerly printed, and those which he design’d for the press: now published out of the authors originall copies
    London: printed by T[homas]. N[ewcomb]. for Henry Herringman, at the signe of the Blew Anchor in the lower walk of the New Exchange, 1673
    [8], 402, [4], 68, 71-486, 111, [1] p., [1] leaf of plates: port.; 2⁰. Wing D320

William Davenant
William Davenant

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References in the diary

1660
Jun: 28
1661
Jul: 2
Aug: 24
1662
Feb: 26
1663
Jul: 22
Oct: 24
Dec: 10
1664
Feb: 7
William Davenant
William Davenant