Although best known as a dramatist and theater manager, Sir William Davenant (or D'Avenant) also deserves notice as a poet. In 1638, when a stipend of one hundred pounds per annum came to him from the Crown, he received distinction as the poet laureate, succeeding Ben Jonson, and he continued until the end of his life producing poems of many forms and purposes, some of them based on innovative theoretical principles.

He was born in late February 1606 in Oxford, where his father, John, a vintner and innkeeper, served as mayor. Davenant's Christian name probably honors William Shakespeare, an admired friend of the family, who, according to reliable tradition, was the poet's godfather. Less reliable tradition even holds that Shakespeare, smitten with the beautiful and witty Jane Shepherd Davenant, was the poet's natural father, a prospect not offensive to Davenant in later life, when he liked, some said, to link...