Jasper Heywood

English priest and poet

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Born:: 1535, London

Died:: Jan. 9, 1598, Naples

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Jasper Heywood (born 1535, London—died Jan. 9, 1598, Naples) was a Jesuit priest and poet whose translations of the works of the Roman playwright Seneca, including Troades (1559), Thyestes (1560), Hercules furens (1561), and other plays issued as Seneca His Tenne Tragedies Translated into English (1581), influenced English drama. A son of the playwright John Heywood, he was educated at Oxford, joined the Jesuits in Rome (1562), and became professor at their college at Dillingen, Ger., in 1564. He was the head of the Jesuit mission to England from 1581, he was imprisoned during 1583–85 and then exiled.

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