In the golden twilight of the English Renaissance, when madrigals flourished in the courts and cathedrals of England and Ireland, few composers demonstrated such exquisite taste in wedding poetry to music as Thomas Bateson. Born around 1575 in the rolling countryside of Cheshire, this Anglo-Irish composer would become one of the most significant figures of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean musical landscape, le…
“Wishing unto your Honour a continual harmony, composed of a comfortable delight of body, goods, and good name, with a daily increase of honour.”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
In the tumultuous landscape of seventeenth-century English literature, few figures shine with such early brilliance yet fade with such puzzling rapidity as Abraham Cowley. Born in 1618 in London, this prodigious poet who published his first collection at fifteen, who dazzled the cavalier court and influenced an entire generation of writers, who was buried in Westminster Abbey beside Chaucer and Spenser, somehow slipp…
“Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder
