Thomas Deloney :: Біографія
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Біографія
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Критика
Thomas Deloney (1543 – April 1600) was an English novelist and balladist.
Virtually nothing is known about Deloney's early life. Modern scholars speculate that he was born around 1560, perhaps in Norfolk, which at that time was an important center of the English textile industry. In his youth he was an itinerant silk-weaver, traveling from town to town in pursuit of work. Although scholars cannot determine whether Deloney was given any formal education, his translations of Protestant religious treatises demonstrate that he had a working knowledge of Latin. In addition, his novels show that Deloney was familiar with Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, Matteo Bandello's Novelle, William Caxton's The Golden Legend, Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles, and the prose, poetry, and plays of his Elizabethan contemporaries. Around 1586 Deloney settled in London and began writing the broadside ballads that won him widespread fame over the following decade. By the early 1590s he had become England's foremost ballad-maker. In 1595 Deloney was briefly jailed after he wrote a pamphlet attacking the government's policy of allowing French and Dutch weavers to ply their trade in England. The following year he composed a ballad complaining about the shortage of grain in the country. Civil authorities regarded the ballad as seditious and apprehended the men who published and printed it. Deloney, however, eluded capture. His first two novels were published in 1597, and the others appeared over the next two or three years. It is generally believed that Deloney died in London early in 1600.
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