1554-1586. English poet and soldier, author
of the sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella
1591, Arcadia 1590, a prose romance, and
Apologie for Poetrie 1595, the earliest work
of English literary criticism. He was born in
Penshurst, Kent. He entered Parliament 1581,
and was knighted 1583. In 1585 he was made
governor of Flushing in the Netherlands, and
died at Zutphen, fighting the Spaniards.