Poet and playwright John Gay was born Devon to an aristocratic though impoverished fay. Unable to afford universy, Gay went to London to…
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JOHN GAY
* john gay playwright *
John Gay, (born June 30, 1685, Barnstaple, Devon, Eng.—died Dec. 4, 1732, London), English poet and dramatist, chiefly remembered as the thor of The Beggar’s Opera, a work distguished by good-humoured satire and technil assurance.A member of an ancient but impoverished Devonshire fay, Gay was ted at the ee grammar school Barnstaple. Gay’s journalistic terts are clearly seen a pamphlet, The Prent State of W (1711), a survey of ntemporary perdil publitns.
It is such lite probg of the surface of social life that Gay excels.
The Shepherd’s Week (1714) is a seri of mock classil poems pastoral settg; the Fabl (two seri, 1727 and 1738) are brief, octosyllabic illtratns of moral them, often satiril tone.Gay’s poetry was much fluenced by that of Alexanr Pope, who was a ntemporary and close iend. Gay was a member, together wh Pope, Jonathan Swift, and John Arbuthnot, of the Scribles Club, a lerary group that aimed to ridicule pedantry. The iends ntributed to two of Gay’s satiril plays: The What D’ye Call It (1715) and Three Hours After Marriage (1717).His most succsful play was The Beggar’s Opera, produced London on Jan.
JOHN GAY
(It was eventually produced 1777, when had a morate succs.) His Beggar’s Opera was succsfully transmted to the 20th century by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as Die Dreigroschenoper (1928; The Threepenny Opera).“Hont” John Gay lost most of his money through disastro vtment South Sea stock, but he nohels left £6,000 when he died. Poet and playwright John Gay was born Devon to an aristocratic though impoverished fay. Unable to afford universy, Gay went to London to apprentice as a draper stead.