author
Henry Constable
1562–1613
An Elizabethan poet best remembered for Diana, one of the earliest English sonnet sequences, he wrote with the polished music and emotional intensity that helped define the age. His life also took a dramatic turn, with religious conversion, exile, and imprisonment shaping the story behind the poems.
1 Audiobook
Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles: Delia - Diana
by Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel
About the author
Henry Constable was an English poet born in 1562 and is remembered above all for Diana, a sonnet sequence that helped establish the form in English literature. He studied at St John's College, Cambridge, and became known as part of the rich poetic culture of the late 16th century.
His life was marked by more than literature alone. After converting to Catholicism in 1591, he spent years on the Continent in exile, and his fortunes remained unsettled even after the accession of James I; accounts of his later life note imprisonment as well as eventual exile abroad.
Constable died in 1613 at Liège. Although not as widely read today as some of his contemporaries, he still holds an important place in literary history for the grace of his sonnets and for helping shape the early English love-sonnet tradition.