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 Cowper
Richard Jago
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
William Cowper was born on 26 November 1731 in the rectory at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, the fourth child of the Reverend John Cowper, rector of the parish, and Ann Donne Cowper. His family belonged to the educated clerical and professional class, and it possessed distinguished connections: his father’s lineage included the Lord Chancellor William Cowper, while his mother was descended from the poet John Donne. Such…
“Home is the nicest word there is.”
Richard Jago, born on 1 October 1715 and dead on 8 May 1781, belonged to that abundant but often underappreciated company of eighteenth-century English writers whose poetry grew from local attachment, clerical discipline, sociability, and an attentive love of the natural world. He was never a literary revolutionary, nor did he seek the metropolitan celebrity attained by Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, or his friend D…
About 102 km separate Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England from Beaudesert, Warwickshire, England. Both have ground in England.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
William Cowper: berkhamsted, john donne, on the receipt of my mother's picture, william hayley, theodora cowper, st. albans, olney hymns, god moves in a mysterious way. Richard Jago: warwickshire, edge-hill, the blackbirds, william shenstone, reverend richard jago, physico-theology, solihull school, snitterfield.
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.
William Cowper: Peace, Tenderness, Wonder. Richard Jago: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.
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