FLETCHER

fletcher, giles (c. 1584-1623), english poet, younger son of the preceding, was born about 1584. fuller in his _worthies of england_ says that he was a native of london, and was educated at westminster school. from there he went to trinity college, cambridge, where he took his b.a. degree in 1606, and became a minor fellow of his college in 1608. he was reader in greek grammar (1615) and in greek language (1618). in 1603 he contributed a poem on the death of queen elizabeth to _sorrow's joy_. his great poem of _christ's victory_ appeared in 1610, and in 1612 he edited the _remains_ of his cousin nathaniel pownall. it is not known in what year he was ordained, but his sermons at st mary's were famous. fuller tells us that the prayer before the sermon was a continuous allegory. he left cambridge about 1618, and soon after received, it is supposed from francis bacon, the rectory of alderton, on the suffolk coast, where "his clownish and low-parted parishioners ... valued not their pastor according to his worth; which disposed him to melancholy and hastened his dissolution." (fuller, _worthies of england_, ed. 1811, vol. ii. p. 82). his last work, _the reward of the faithful_, appeared in the year of his death (1623). the principal work by which giles fletcher is known is _christ's victorie and triumph, in heaven, in earth, over and after death_ (1610). an edition in 1640 contains seven full-page illustrative engravings by george tate. it is in four cantos and is epic in design. the first canto, "christ's victory in heaven," represents a dispute in heaven between justice and mercy, assuming the facts of christ's life on earth; the second, "christ's victory on earth," deals with an allegorical account of the temptation; the third, "christ's triumph over death," treats of the passion; and the fourth, "christ's triumph after death," treating of the resurrection and ascension, concludes with an affectionate eulogy of his brother phineas fletcher (q.v.) as "thyrsilis." the metre is an eight-line stanza owing something to spenser. the first five lines rhyme ababb, and the stanza concludes with a rhyming triplet, resuming the conceit which nearly every verse embodies. giles fletcher, like his brother phineas, to whom he was deeply attached, was a close follower of spenser. in his very best passages giles fletcher attains to a rich melody which charmed the ear of milton, who did not hesitate to borrow very considerably from the _christ's victory and triumph_ in his _paradise regained_. fletcher lived in an age which regarded as models the poems of marini and gongora, and his conceits are sometimes grotesque in connexion with the sacredness of his subject. but when he is carried away by his theme and forgets to be ingenious, he attains great solemnity and harmony of style. his descriptions of the lady of vain delight, in the second canto, and of justice and of mercy in the first, are worked out with much beauty of detail into separate pictures, in the manner of the _faerie queene_. giles fletcher's poem was edited (1868) for the _fuller worthies library_, and (1876) for the _early english poets_ by dr a.b. grosart. it is also reprinted for _the ancient and modern library of theological literature_ (1888), and in r. cattermole's and h. stebbing's _sacred classics_ (1834, &c.) vol. 20. in the library of king's college, cambridge, is a ms. _aegidii fletcherii versio poetica lamentationum jeremiae_.