John Dowland was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Renaissance composer

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

, singer, and lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

nist. He is best known today for his melancholy

Melancholia

Melancholia , also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, , in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression,...

 song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

s such as "Come, heavy sleep" (the basis for Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

's Nocturnal), "Come again

Come Again (Dowland)

Come Again, sweet love doth now invite is a song by John Dowland. The lyrics are anonymous. Dowland's music can be performed by soloist and lute or by a small vocal group ....

", "Flow my tears

Flow my tears

Flow my Tears is a lute song by the accomplished lutenist and composer John Dowland.Originally composed as an instrumental under the name Lachrimae pavane in 1596, it is Dowland's most famous ayre, and became his signature song, literally as well as metaphorically: he would occasionally sign his...

", "I saw my Lady weepe

I saw my Lady weepe

"I Saw My Lady Weepe" is a lute song from the Second Booke of Songes or Ayres by Renaissance lutenist and composer John Dowland. It is the first song in the Second Booke and is dedicated to Anthony Holborne...

" and "In darkness let me dwell

In darkness let me dwell

In darkness let me dwell is a song by the lutenist and composer John Dowland. Like many of Dowland's songs, its subject matter is melancholy and its lyrics anonymous...

", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has been a source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitar

Classical guitar

The classical guitar is a 6-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones...

ists during the twentieth century.
Very little is known of John "the Bard" Dowland's early life, but it is generally thought he was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.