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
Thomas Osbert Mordaunt
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.”
Thomas Osbert Mordaunt, born in 1730 and dead on 13 February 1809, occupies an unusual but revealing place in eighteenth-century British culture. He was a career cavalry officer who rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, a man connected by birth and service to the highest military and courtly circles, and the author of a short poem whose best-known stanza has outlived nearly everything else he wrote. “One crowded ho…
About 42 km separate Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England from London, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
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. Thomas Osbert Mordaunt: lieutenant-general, battle of warburg, the call, georgian britain, colonel charles mordaunt, princess augusta, richard howe, william howe.
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. Thomas Osbert Mordaunt: Tenderness, Sorrow, Longing.
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