Lodge, Thomas

(1558?-1625)

   Poet and dramatist, s. of Sir Thomas L., Lord Mayor of London, was ed. at Merchant Taylor's School and Oxf. He was a student of Lincoln's Inn, but abandoned law for literature, ultimately studied medicine, and took M.D. at Oxf. 1603; having become a Roman Catholic, he had a large practice, chiefly among his co-religionists. In 1580 he pub. A Defence of Plays in reply to Gosson's School of Abuse; and he wrote poems, dramas, and romances. His principal dramatic works are The Wounds of Civil War, and (in conjunction with Greene, q.v.) A Looking-glass for London and England. Among his romances may be mentioned Euphues' Shadow, Forbonius and Prisceria (1584), and Rosalynde, Euphues' Golden Legacie (1590). His poems include Glaucus and Scilia (1589), Phillis honoured with Pastoral Sonnets, Elegies, and Amorous Delights (1593). Rosalynde, his best known work, and the source from which Shakespeare is said to have drawn As you like It, was written to beguile the tedium of a voyage to the Canaries. Robin the Divell and William Longbeard are historical romances. L. was also a voluminous translator. He was one of the founders of the regular English drama, but his own plays are heavy and tedious. His romances, popular in their day, are sentimental and over-refined in language, but are enlivened by lyrical pieces in which he is far more successful than in his dramatic work.