Phineas Fletcher

Phineas Fletcher (1582 – 1650)

1. born at Cranbrook, kent in 1582.
2. Attained Eton and King’s College, cambridge.
3. Works:
   1. His earliest work appeared in Sorrowes Joy, a poetical miscellany, compiled at the university in 1603.
   2. Fletcher’s best known poem, The Purple Island (1633), is an allegorical description of man, in the style of Spenser, published in 163. Written in 12 cantoes, it describes the corporeal and intellectual functions of man. (Nathan Drake). It was dedicated to his friend Edward Benlowes and included his pastoral elegies and other poetical miscellanies.
   3. The Lotus (1627) or Apollyonist: it is a satire against the Jesuits.
   4. Sicelides (1631), a pastoral play.
   5. Britain’s Ida (1628), it is an erotic poem.
   6. The Way to Blessedness (1632)
   7. Joy in Tribulation (1632)