The following version of the poem was used to create this guide: Daniel, Samuel. "The Complaint of Rosamund." The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel. https://sourcetext.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/samuel_daniel_1.pdf

Note that all parenthetical citations within the guide refer to the lines of the poem from which the quotations are taken. Where appropriate, spelling has been modernized for the purposes of the guide.

Samuel Daniel's life is not recorded until he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, at the age of nineteen. He did not complete his studies. However, he did find his first noble patron, Sir Edward Dymoke. Under Dymoke's patronage, he began to write seriously, and was able to travel and meet other prominent literary figures. He later enjoyed the patronage of Mary Sidney, Countess Pembroke, sister to the great poet Philip Sidney and a formidable poet in her own right. Though initially a contentious relationship, as he had appended his "Delia" sonnet cycle to an unauthorized version of her brother's works, Sidney and Daniel later became colleagues and collaborators, as well as patron and poet. He wrote several plays under her patronage before they parted ways.

After several years of work as a tutor to various noble children and authorship of "The Complaint of Rosamond" and other long poems, Daniel found employment in the court of James I. He was the official censor of plays for the court, a position of considerable power. He continued to work on an epic historical cycle that he never finished. Little information about his personal life survives, and it is unknown if he married or had children. He died in 1618, likely of jaundice.

"The Complaint of Rosamond" is a long poem written in the genre of complaint – usually a poem written from the perspective of a lamenting woman. Because the poem is based on the life of Rosamond Clifford (the mistress of Henry II), many consider it to also be a historical poem.