Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Robert Herrick
King James Bible
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Robert Herrick was born in London on 24 August 1591 and died at Dean Prior in Devon on 15 October 1674. He is remembered as one of the supreme lyric poets of seventeenth-century England: a writer capable of making a four-line epigram feel as complete as a polished jewel, and of making flowers, ribbons, country festivals, kisses, bells, tears, and prayer seem charged with extraordinary significance. His poetry is ofte…
“Age is the worst enemy to beauty, and the most faithful friend to virtue.”
The King James Bible, more accurately called the King James Version or Authorized Version, does not have a birth and death date in the ordinary biographical sense, because it is neither a person nor the work of a solitary author. Yet it has a remarkably vivid life story. “Born” in print in 1611, during the reign of James VI and I (born June 19, 1566; died March 27, 1625), it emerged from religious conflict, royal cal…
“Variety of translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures.”
About 4 km separate Cheapside, London, England from Hampton Court, London, England. Both have ground in London and England.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Robert Herrick: london, dean prior, george villiers, carpe diem, to the virgins, to make much of time, gather ye rosebuds while ye may, upon a child that died, ben jonson. King James Bible: king james version, authorized version, hampton court conference, william tyndale, john wycliffe, lancelot andrewes, miles smith, george abbot.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Robert Herrick: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow. King James Bible: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder.
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