Nahum Tate (1652–July 30, 1715) was an Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692.
Nahum Tate was born in Dublin in 1652, the son of Faithful Teate, an Irish clergyman, who had written a poem on the Trinity entitled Ter Tria. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a BA in 1672, and by 1676 he had moved to London and was writing for a living. The following year he had adopted the spelling Tate, which woul...
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Nahum Tate (1652–July 30, 1715) was an Irish poet, hymnist, and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692.
Nahum Tate was born in Dublin in 1652, the son of Faithful Teate, an Irish clergyman, who had written a poem on the Trinity entitled Ter Tria. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a BA in 1672, and by 1676 he had moved to London and was writing for a living. The following year he had adopted the spelling Tate, which would remain until his death, in 1715, in Southwark, London, England.
Tate published a volume of poems in London in 1677, and became a regular writer for the stage. "Brutus of Alba, or The Enchanted Lovers" (1678), a tragedy dealing with Dido and Aeneas, later adapted to the libretto for Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas (1689?), and The Loyal General (1680), were followed by a series of adaptations from Elizabethan dramas.
In William Shakespeare's Richard II he altered the names of the characters, and changed the text so that every scene,...
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