| Name: |
Nahum Tate |
| Birth Date: |
|
| Death Date: |
|
| Nationality: |
|
| Gender: |
|
It is one of the minor ironies of literary history that Nahum Tate's small claim to fame is for having the audacity to attempt to "improve" Shakespeare's plays, most egregiously King Lear. His contemporaries found him anything but audacious; Charles Gildon is typical in his referring to "a Person of great Probity of Manners, Learning, and good Nature," whose relative lack of success in the world came from being "guilty of Modesty," since "it is the noisy pushing Man in Poetry, as well as other things, that prevails with Fame as well as Fortune." Modest in manners, Tate possessed abilities to match. The "life" published under the name of Theophilus Cibber in Lives of the Poets (1753) repeated concisely the commonplace view of Tate's limitations: He was "a man of learning, courteous and candid, but was thought to possess no great genius, as being deficient in what is its first characteristic, namely, invention." Tate came to terms with his limitations early in his career; Gerard Langbaine (1691) pointed out that "generally he follows other Mens Models and builds on their Foundations: for of eight Plays that are printed under his Name, Six of them owe their Original to other Pens." His greatest success came as a translator (most notably of Ovid and Juvenal, and, with Nicholas Brady, of a metrical version of the Psalms of David, parts of which are still included in many hymnals) and adapter (most notably of King Lear; his version held the stage for more than 150 years).
This is a free page. This page contains 151 words. This
biography contains 7,710 words (approx. 26 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Nahum Tate Access Pass.
