Elizabethans

[poliphilo]

So, how many of the original Elizabethans still matter to us? Well, there's Shakespeare and- erm- well- after that it gets tricky. A few playwrights and poets, an adventurer or two, a couple of composers, Dr John Dee, Francis Bacon. But it would be really difficult to come up with 60 names. In fact 20 would be pushing it. Most kinds of fame are transitory. Will any of the 60 new Elizabethans being feted on Radio 4 still be household names in another 400 years? 

Here's the list

I'll venture a guess that the well-informed person in 2412 might be expected to have heard of Hitchcock, Britten, Larkin, Lennon and McCartney, Bacon and Hockney- and that's it.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Christopher Marlowe.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, certainly.

And Ben Jonson.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

The Elizabethans and Cavaliers knew how to make love without slobbering (I'm not partial to the Victorians' sickly sentimentality).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Victorians tried to pretend it had nothing to do with sex.

Not all of them. Browning was on the money I think.