William Fennor

William Fennor (fl 1617), also known as Wilhelmus Vener, was an English bilingual English/Dutch poet and rogue of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.[1]

He was the author of The Compter’s Commonwealth (1617). This work was written from his experience of imprisonment at London's Wood Street compter.[2]

He had been an actor at the Swan theatre, where he performed in England's Joy. In 1615 at Theobalds he recited a poem for the king about the differences between Oxford and Cambridge Universities. In 1616 he recited a poem on the Order of the Garter to the court of King James. He appeared in Ben Jonson's Masque of Augurs in 1621. He engaged in a literary dispute with John Taylor the Water Poet.[3]

References
  1. Simoni, Anna E. C. (1978). "Bilingual poet: William Fennor, Alias Wilhelmus Vener, Enghelsman". Neophilologus. 62: 151–160. doi:10.1007/BF01514320.
  2. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton. XVI. London and the Development of Popular Literature. § 23. Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste.
  3. John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), pp. 97, 139-65.


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