Munday, Anthony

Munday, Anthony

▪ English poet, dramatist, pamphleteer, and translator
Munday also spelled  Mundy 
born 1560?, London, Eng.—buried Aug. 9, 1633, London

      English poet, dramatist, pamphleteer, and translator.

      The son of a draper, Munday began his career as an apprentice to a printer. In 1578 he was abroad, evidently as a secret agent sent to discover the plans of English Catholic refugees in France and Italy, and under a false name he obtained admission to the English College at Rome for several months. On his return he became an actor and a prolific writer. He published popular ballads, some original lyrics, much moralizing in verse, translations of many volumes of French and Spanish romances, and prose pamphlets, but only two of his many plays were printed.

      In 1581–82 Munday was prominent in the capture and trials of the Jesuit emissaries (many of whom he had known at Rome) who followed the martyr Edmund Campion to England. Critics have found his English Romayne Lyfe (1582) of permanent interest as a detailed and entertaining, though hostile, description of life and study in the English College at Rome. By 1586 he had been appointed one of the “messengers of her majesty's chamber,” a post he seems to have held for the rest of Elizabeth I's reign.

      Munday wrote at least 17 plays, of which only a handful survive. He may be the author of Fedele and Fortunio (c. 1584), an adaptation of an Italian original; it was performed at court and printed in 1585. His best-known plays are two pseudo-histories on the life of the legendary outlaw hero Robin Hood, The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon and The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon (both 1598). He was probably the main author of Sir Thomas More (c. 1590–93), a play that William Shakespeare helped to revise. Munday ceased to write plays after 1602, but during 1605–23 he wrote at least five of the pageants with which the lord mayor of London celebrated his entry into office. A friend of the chronicler John Stow, he was responsible for enlarged editions of Stow's Survey of London in 1618 and 1633.

Additional Reading
Celeste Turner, Anthony Mundy, an Elizabethan Man of Letters (1928, reprinted 1977); Tracey Hill, Anthony Munday and Civic Culture (2004); Donna B. Hamilton, Anthony Munday and the Catholics, 1560–1633 (2005).

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Munday, Anthony — (1553 1633)    Dramatist, poet, and pamphleteer, s. of a draper in London, appears to have had a somewhat chequered career. He went to Rome in 1578, and pub. The Englyshe Romayne Life, in which he gives descriptions of rites and other matters… …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • Munday, Anthony — (1553 1633)    At the end of his apprenticeship to a London stationer around 1573, he spent some time at the English seminary in Rome, entertained by the rector who had been a friend of his father. Back in London he was an actor and wrote some… …   British and Irish poets

  • Anthony Munday — (or Monday) (1560? – 10 August 1633) was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer. The chief interest in Munday for the modern reader lies in his collaboration with Shakespeare and others on the play Sir Thomas More and his writings on Robin …   Wikipedia

  • Anthony Munday — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Anthony Munday (o Monday) (1560?–10 de agosto de 1633), fue un dramaturgo inglés. Su principal interés para el lector moderno radica en su colaboración con Shakespeare y otros en la obra Sir Thomas More y sus… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Munday — can refer to: People Anthony Munday (1560–1633), English dramatist Don Munday (1890–1950), Canadian explorer, naturalist and mountaineer Jim Munday (born 1917), Australian rules footballer John Mundy (composer) (c.1550–1630), English Renaissance… …   Wikipedia

  • Munday — ist der Name mehrerer Orte in den Vereinigten Staaten: Munday (Texas) Munday (West Virginia) Insel: Munday Island, Tasmanien, Australien Personen: Anthony Munday (um 1560–1633), englischer Dramaturg und Schriftsteller Don Munday (1890–1950),… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Anthony Calf — is a British actor, born in 1959 in Hammersmith, London (UK). He has recurring roles in the television medical drama Holby City , as Michael Beauchamp, and New Tricks as Strickland. He has also worked in theatre, where his credits include… …   Wikipedia

  • Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford — The Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, unknown artist after lost orig …   Wikipedia

  • Marprelate Kontroverse — bezeichnet die Auseinandersetzung zwischen einem oder mehreren puritanischen Schriftstellern und der Church of England in den Jahren 1588/89. Auslöser der Marprelate Kontroverse waren zwischen Oktober 1588 und September 1589 erschienene… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • English literature — Introduction       the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles (including Ireland) from the 7th century to the present day. The major literatures written in English outside the British Isles are… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”