Daniel, Samuel
Daniel, Samuel (c.1563–1619),poet and playwright, whose work intersects with Shakespeare's at many points. His first publication was the Sidneian sonnet sequence Delia (1592), whose serious, measured verse lays the thematic foundation for variations played in Shakespeare's Sonnets (Daniel is sometimes identified as the ‘rival poet’ in that sequence). Alongside Delia he published a narrative poem, The Complaint of Rosamond. Written in rhyme royal, the stanza form adopted by Shakespeare in A Lover's Complaint and The Rape of Lucrece, its intimate scrutiny of sexual tyranny and female psychological torment anticipates Venus and Adonis as well as The Rape of Lucrece. The Delia volume may well have influenced Shakespeare's decision to publish a complaint poem along with his Sonnets in 1609. Daniel was an assiduous reviser of his writings—he prefaced his Certain Small...
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