Ñàéò ïîå糿, â³ðø³, ïîçäîðîâëåííÿ ó â³ðøàõ :: John Lydgate :: Á³îãðàô³ÿ

John Lydgate :: Á³îãðàô³ÿ

John Lydgate of Bury (c. 1370 – c. 1451) was a monk and poet, born in Lydgate, Suffolk, England. It is, however, with the Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds that he is chiefly associated. Probably he was educated at the school attached to the monastery, and in his Testament he has drawn a lively picture of himself as a typical orchard-robbing boy, who had scant relish for matins, fought, and threw creed and paternoster at the cock. He was ordained sub-deacon in 1389, deacon in 1393, and priest in 1397. Lydgate passed as a portent of learning, and, according to Bale, he pursued his studies not only at both the English universities but in France and Italy. On completing his own education, he might have kept school for the sons of noblemen and gentlemen. This "traditional biography" prolongs his life to the year 1461, but it is quite improbable that he lived many years after 1446. Some indications point to the year 1451, or thereabouts, as the date of his death. Lydgate had a consuming passion for literature, and it was probably that he might indulge this taste more fully that in 1434 he retired from the priorate of Hatfield Broadoak (or Hatfield Regis), to which he had been appointed in June 1423. After 1390 — but whilst he was still a young man — he made the acquaintance of Geoffrey Chaucer, with whose son Thomas he was on terms of considerable intimacy. This friendship appears to have decided Lydgate's career, and in his Troy-book and elsewhere are reverent and touching tributes to his "master." Lydgate is a most voluminous writer. The Falls of Princes alone comprises 7000 stanzas; and his authentic compositions reach the enormous total of 150,000 lines. Cursed with such immoderate fluency Lydgate could not sustain himself at the highest level of artistic excellence; and, though imbued with a sense of the essentials of poetry, and eager to prove himself in its various manifestations, he stinted himself of the self-discipline necessary to perfection of form. As the result the bulk of his composition is wholly or comparatively rough-hewn. That he was capable of better work than is suggested by his average accomplishment is shown by two allegorical poems — the Complaint of the Black Knight and the Temple of Glass. In these he reveals himself as a not unworthy successor of Chaucer, and the pity of it is that he should have squandered his powers in a futile attempt to create an entire literature.