author
active 1596 William Smith
An elusive Elizabethan poet, he is known for a single surviving work: the sonnet sequence Chloris, printed in 1596. Little is known about his life, which gives the book an extra air of mystery.
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Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles: Idea, Fidesa and Chloris
by Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, active 1596 William Smith
About the author
William Smith was an English poet active in the late 16th century. He is best known for Chloris, or The Complaint of the Passionate Despised Shepherd, a sonnet sequence published in 1596.
Very little can be confirmed about his life, and even his birth and death dates are uncertain. Because of that, he is usually remembered through his writing rather than through a detailed biography.
His work belongs to the rich tradition of Elizabethan love poetry, when sonnet sequences were especially popular in England. For many readers, Smith remains a fascinating literary figure precisely because Chloris has outlasted almost everything else about him.