In the rich tapestry of Elizabethan literature, certain figures stand as crucial bridges between the medieval past and the Renaissance flowering that would produce Shakespeare, Spenser, and Marlowe. Among these transitional figures, Barnabe Googe occupies a unique and often underappreciated position as one of the earliest English poets to fully embrace Continental Renaissance forms while maintaining a distinctly Engl…
“I hear live amongst a sort of Scythians, wanting the comfort of my country, my poor wife and children.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Irony
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…
“To read a poem is to hear the voice of the poet speaking across the years.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
