In the pantheon of Elizabethan literature, few figures embody the Renaissance ideal as completely as Sir Philip Sidney. Born into privilege on November 30, 1554, at Penshurst Place in Kent, Sidney would live only thirty-one years, yet his brief existence would illuminate the literary landscape of England with such brilliance that his influence continues to resonate more than four centuries after his death. His life r…
“He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Thomas Stanley, born on 3 September 1625 and dead on 12 April 1678, was one of the most cultivated English writers of the seventeenth century: a lyric poet of the Cavalier age, a translator of Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish literature, an editor of Aeschylus, a patron and friend of writers, and the author of the first substantial history of philosophy written in English. His name has never carried the imm…
“The learned Gassendus was my precedent; whom nevertheless I have not followed in his partiality, for he, though limited to a single person, yet giveth himself liberty of enlargement.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
