Lodge, Thomas (c. 1558–1625)

English author. His romance Rosalynde (1590) was the basis of Shakespeare's play As You Like It. He excelled as a lyric poet, and Glaucus and Scilla appeared in 1589; his main volume of verse, Phillis, a collection of amorous sonnets, was published in 1593, and A Fig for Momus in 1598.

He also wrote two dramas, The Wounds of Civile War and, in collaboration with Robert Greene (1558–1592), A Looking-Glass for London and England, both 1594, and he translated the works of Seneca and Josephus.

Lodge was born in West Ham and educated at Merchant Taylors' and Trinity College, Oxford. He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1578, but for variety and adventure he took part in two sea expeditions against the Spaniards near the Azores and Canary Islands 1589–91. He studied medicine in Avignon, France, about 1595 and practised as a doctor during the latter part of his life.