In the twilight years of Elizabeth I's reign, when England stood poised between the medieval world and the dawning age of Shakespeare, a composer emerged whose voice would capture the profound melancholy and spiritual yearning of a nation in transition. John Ward, born around 1571 and departing this world in 1638, represents one of the most compelling yet enigmatic figures in the pantheon of English Renaissance music…
“What I may produce hereafter is wholly Yours, as who hath more right to the Fruit than he that owneth the Stock?”
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Henry Vaughan, born on 17 April 1621 and buried on 23 April 1695, was one of the most distinctive English-language poets of the seventeenth century: a Welsh country gentleman, Royalist, medical practitioner, translator, religious writer, and visionary poet whose work transformed private devotion into startling images of light, landscape, childhood, death, and eternity. He is usually grouped with the metaphysical poet…
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Welsh Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Spirituality, Longing
