Thomas Lodge (c. 1557 – September 1625) was a prominent figure in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, leaving his mark on literature, drama, and medicine. His boyhood is linked to Soulton, and he was an important influence on Shakespeare.
Born in the London area, to a family with strong connections to Shropshire at Cound, Lodge was born to a prominant London Merchant, Sir Thomas Lodge, who would become Lord Mayor of London in 1562 (the Mayoralty ended in scandal when His finances collpased, and he was obliged to declare himself bankrupt)
Lodge received an education at Merchant Taylors’ School (in that he was a benificiarry of Sir Rowland Hill who had helped secure the finacial coundations of that school) and Trinity College, Oxford.
Lodge is linked to Soulton because his father sold the manor to Hill in the 1550s, and his family lived here until it became the headquaters of Old Sir Rowland.
Though his family envisioned a different path, Lodge’s passion for literature led him to defy their wishes.
Lodge’s literary journey began with a defense of poetry against puritan attacks. Philip Sidney (who also knew Old Sir Rowland) wrote on similar lines.
He then ventured into prose with Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacy, a story that would later inspire Shakespeare’s As You Like It. This work, infused with the “euphuistic” style popular at the time, showcased Lodge’s talent for crafting captivating narratives. This is one of the several reasons why Soulton Wood is considered the As You Like It wood.
Around 1596, Lodge converted to Catholicism, a decision that impacted his writing.
He penned religious tracts while simultaneously pursuing a career in medicine.
Earning medical qualifications from both Avignon and Oxford, Lodge would contribute to medical literature, for example in A Treatise of the Plague. This interest is not without interst to thouse who know about Old Sir Rowland’s extensive work in public health and hospitals.
Lodge’s diverse contributions continue to be appreciated. His influence on Shakespeare, his captivating prose works, and his translations of classical texts solidify his place as a versatile and significant figure in English literature.
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Here are a couple of quotations from the As You Like It source book that fit with the ladscape we know so well here:
“Content,” quoth Aliena, and with that they rose up, and marched forward till towards the even, and then coming into a fair valley, compassed with mountains, whereon grew many pleasant shrubs, they might descry where two flocks of sheep did feed.– Thomas Lodge, ‘Rosalynde’ (1590)
I wander in this forrest, to light on some cottage where I… may dwell… meaning to liue low, and content me with a countrey life: for I haue heard the swaynes say, that they drunke without suspition, & slept without care.– Thomas Lodge, ‘Rosalynde’ (1590)
