John Gay (30 June 1685 - 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728), set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.
Gay was born in Barnstaple, England and was educated at the town's grammar school and secondly at Blundell's School. Interestingly, though Barnstaple Grammar School currently exists as Park Co...
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John Gay (30 June 1685 - 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728), set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.
Gay was born in Barnstaple, England and was educated at the town's grammar school and secondly at Blundell's School. Interestingly, though Barnstaple Grammar School currently exists as Park Community School, the actual building in which Barnstaple Grammar School existed has now been transformed into a chapel: St Anne's Chapel. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London, but being weary, according to Samuel Johnson, "of either the restraint or the servility of his occupation", he soon returned to Barnstaple, where he spent some time with his uncle, the Rev. John Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town. He then returned to London.
The dedication of his Rural Sports (1713) to Alexander Pope was the...
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