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.
JOHN GAY
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.