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.
William Browne of Tavistock, born about 1588 and traditionally thought to have died about 1650, is one of the most attractive and elusive figures in early seventeenth-century English poetry. He was not a major public presence on the scale of Ben Jonson, John Donne, or George Wither, nor did he leave behind the unusually full documentary record that allows historians to reconstruct the lives of some contemporaries. Ye…
“They believe the spirit which inspired the Reformation and the genius which dictated the Magna Charta possessed you.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Renaissance Poets
In the twilight years of the English Renaissance, as the golden age of the madrigal began to fade and the court of King James I embraced new continental fashions, a composer emerged whose delicate art would capture the essence of a transforming musical landscape. John Attey, though his name may not resonate with the same authority as his contemporaries John Dowland or Thomas Campion, created a body of work that stand…
They overlapped for 43 years (1598–1640).
When John Attey was born, William Browne, of Tavistock was about 10.
William Browne, of Tavistock was about 52 when John Attey died.
William Browne, of Tavistock:
devonshire, britannia's pastorals, the shepherd's pipe, george wither, exeter college, inner temple, pastoral writing, classical pastoral.
John Attey:
english renaissance, king james i, west country, somerset, the first booke of ayres, sweet was the song the virgin sang, on a time the amorous silvy, come, follow me, my wandering mind.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
