16th Century Poet & Critic Samuel Daniel

Daniel was born in 1562 in Somersetshire. Thomas Fuller claimed that Daniel's father was a master of music, though no independent evidence has been found to support this statement. His younger brother was a musician, however, and a composer of some note. Samuel was throughout his career a quiet, serious, almost shy man of letters. Nothing is known of his boyhood. When he was nineteen, he entered Magdalen College, Oxford University, and he remained there until 1581, where he met John Florio, remembered today primarily for his later translation of Montaigne. The two were friends for life, and some biographers have even assumed that they later became brothers-in-law. In 1562 Florio produced his manuscript volume Giardino di recreatione, which included among its collection of proverbs four Latin verses by Daniel that made puns on Florio's names. These are Daniel's first recorded verses (Seronsy 13-14).

There has been speculation about other people Daniel might have met while in college, such as the

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d been themes at least as far back as Petrarch (Sesonsy 24-25). Daniel's sonnets had an influence on his contemporaries, but the degree of that influence is in some dispute. It is known that he had some influence on the work of Richard Barnfield and Bartholomew Griffin, and a more important imitator was Michael Drayton, who was also influenced by Daniel in other areas of his poetry. Drayton had a varied poetical career that extended through the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. The early influence of Daniel on Drayton was extensive, and Drayton often imitates Daniel in his sonnets and even borrows directly from the latter's work. There has been speculation that Daniel might have had an influence on the development of Shakespeare's sonnets, but this is not so easily demonstrated and has been the object of much argument (Sesonsy 30-31). The Complaint of Rosamond was a very successful volume, a long poem telling a story. The work would be even more influential than the sonnets, though it is less commonly known today, and it still has a strong interest for its historical and artistic origins and for the precise way by which it fused a variety of literary conventions and gave shape and temper to the work of other po
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