Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) was an English poet, playwright and historian in the late-Elizabethan and early-Jacobean eras. He was an innovator in a wide range of literary genres. His best-known works are the sonnet cycle Delia, the epic poem The Civil Wars Between the Houses of Lancaster and York, the dialogue in verse Musophilus, and the essay on English poetry A Defence of Rhyme. He was considered one of the preeminent authors of his time, and his works had a significant influence on contemporary writers, including William Shakespeare. Daniel's writings continued to influence authors for centuries after his death, especially the Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. C. S. Lewis called Daniel "the most interesting man of letters" whom the sixteenth century produced in England. George Eliot quoted from Musophilus, "Why should our pride make such a stir to be …", uncredited, in Middlemarch.
Early life, education, and relationship with John Florio
Little is known about Samuel Daniel's early life. Biographer Thomas Fuller in Histories of the Worthies of England (1662) states that he "was born not far from Taunton" in Somerset. The earliest evidence providing definitive details of his life is an entry in the signature book of Oxford University documenting his matriculation at Magdalen Hall (now Hertford College) on "17 Nov., 1581, aged 19". Daniel did not complete his degree at Oxford; Anthony à Wood in Athenae Oxonienses (1691) states that he "was more prone to easier and smoother studies, than in pecking and hewing at logic".
While at Oxford, Daniel met the author and translator John Florio, who was teaching Italian at the university at the time. In 1582, Daniel contributed a Latin verse to Florio's Giardino di Recreatione. Daniel maintained a relationship with Florio for years thereafter. He wrote a dedicatory poem that was included in Florio's translation of Michel de Montaigne's Essays in 1603. The second edition of Florio's Montaigne, published in 1613, included a revised version of Daniel's dedication in which the poet referred to Florio as "my dear friend and brother". This has led to the inference that either Florio had married Daniel's sister or Daniel had married Florio's sister, an inference that has never been proven.
1585–1591: First published work and patronage of Sir Edward Dymoke
Daniel's first published work was The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius, a translation of an Italian treatise on impresa or emblems by historian Paolo Giovio. This emblem book was published in 1585 by Simon Waterson, who would remain Daniel's friend and principal publisher for the rest of his life. The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius was dedicated to Sir Edward Dymoke, the Queen's Champion. Daniel's association with Dymoke was the first of a series of close relationships with noble patrons that came to characterise the author's literary career.
Dymoke wrote a letter of introduction on Daniel's behalf which allowed the young student to live in the English embassy in France between 1585 and 1586 as he advanced his studies. Between 1590 and 1591, he returned to the continent, travelling part of the time accompanied by Dymoke. Daniel and Dymoke met the poet Giovanni Battista Guarini in Italy and defended English as a language worthy of poetry and great writers.
1591–1593: Patronage of Mary Sidney, Delia, Rosamond, and Cleopatra
Daniel's literary career was effectively launched in late 1591 with the unauthorized inclusion of some of his Delia sonnets in the posthumous first edition of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. Sidney's sister, Mary Sidney, the Countess of Pembroke, objected to the surreptitious publication of her brother's work, and the edition was recalled by the Stationers Company. In 1592, Daniel published the first authorized edition of his own poetic works, the sonnet cycle Delia, and the historical poem The Complaint of Rosamond. Daniel dedicated Delia to Mary Sidney and begged her forgiveness for the inclusion of his poems in the unauthorized edition of her brother's work, claiming that he had been "betrayed by the indiscretions of a greedy printer." Soon after the publication of Delia and Rosamond, Daniel was invited to join the Pembroke household, serving the family in some capacity, perhaps as tutor to the twelve-year-old William Herbert. He also joined a group of writers encouraged by Mary Sidney that has come to be referred to as the Wilton Circle, a group that included Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Sir John Davies, and Abraham Fraunce.
Immediately upon the publication of Delia and Rosamond, Daniel began receiving praise from English poets and scholars, including Thomas Nashe, Thomas Churchyard, and Gabriel Harvey. Edmund Spenser, at the time England's most highly regarded living author, endorsed Daniel in Colin Clouts Come Home Again (1595), stating that "there is a new shepherd late upsprung, / The which doth all afore him far surpass" and imploring his fellow poet to "rouse thy feathers quickly, Daniel, / And to what course thou please thyself advance".
From 1592 to 1593, under the patronage of Mary Sidney, Daniel completed The Tragedy of Cleopatra, which was published in 1594. The play was written at the request of Sidney as a sequel to Robert Garnier's French tragedy Marc-Antoine, a play she had translated into English as The Tragedy of Antony and published in 1592. Both plays were written in the style of classical closet drama, plays more intended to be read than performed. During the early to mid-twentieth century literary critics postulated that the plays were part of Mary Sidney's effort to reform English theater, returning it to classical standards espoused by her brother, Philip Sidney, in his Defence of Poesy. This view of Mary Sidney's work was advanced by T. S. Eliot in his 1932 essay, "Apology for the Countess of Pembroke". Subsequent literary criticism, however, has suggested that Sidney's literary efforts were not part of a campaign against English drama, but rather were efforts to adapt continental works on history for an English audience and use them for contemporary political commentary.
1594–1601: Mountjoy, Civil Wars, Poetical Essays, and Works
After the publication of Cleopatra, Daniel parted ways with Mary Sidney and experienced financial difficulties. He was taken in by Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy, as described in the first edition of Daniel's epic poem about the Wars of the Roses, The First Four Books of the Civil Wars Between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York, published in 1595. The poem included complimentary references to Mountjoy and a section praising him and his close friend Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Daniel had worked at Essex's estate, Wanstead, as he wrote the initial version of his poem.
Between 1595 and 1599, Daniel added a fifth book to The Civil Wars and included the expanded poem in The Poetical Essays of Samuel Daniel, a collection of his works dedicated to Mountjoy and published in 1599. The collection included revised versions of Delia, Rosamond, and Cleopatra, as well as two new works, Musophilus and A Letter From Octavia to Marcus Antonius. Musophilus was dedicated to Daniel's friend and fellow poet Fulke Greville, whose discussions with Daniel had inspired the dialogue in verse, a debate between a poet and a courtier on the value of writing poetry relative to more worldly pursuits. A Letter from Octavia was dedicated to Margaret Clifford, the Countess of Cumberland, whose relationship with her philandering husband inspired Daniel's sympathetic portrayal of Mark Antony's wife, Octavia. The use of the word "Essays" in the title of the collection may have been inspired by Montaigne's French work that had used the same word in its title. Like Montaigne's writings, Daniel's collection included works that debated topics in a contemplative, self-reflective style.
During the late 1590s to first years of the 1600s, Daniel took on the role of tutor to the young Anne Clifford, daughter of the Countess of Cumberland, the woman to whom he had dedicated A Letter to Octavia. Anne Clifford maintained a sense of gratitude and affection toward Daniel through the rest of her life. She included his portrait and volumes of his works in the family triptych she commissioned that has come to be known as The Great Picture.