Katherine Philips, born Katherine Fowler on 1 January 1632 and dead at only thirty-two on 22 June 1664, achieved a distinction that would have seemed improbable in the unsettled England of her youth: she became a celebrated poet while she was still alive, and she did so as a woman writing in forms and subjects conventionally claimed by men. Known to her readers and friends as “Orinda,” Philips fashioned poems of frie…
Compare Poets
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.
Poet A
Katherine Philips
Poet B
Thomas Dekker
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 60%
Blended 60%
Swap sides
Another related pair
Thomas Dekker, born about 1572 and buried on 25 August 1641, was one of the most prolific, humane, and distinctly urban writers of the English Renaissance. A playwright, pamphleteer, poet, translator, maker of civic pageants, and tireless collaborator, he wrote from within the crowded and dangerous life of London rather than above it. His works teem with apprentices, shoemakers, tavern-haunters, debtors, prostitutes,…
“Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.”
In time
Katherine Philips
Thomas Dekker
1572
1664
They overlapped for 10 years (1632–1641).
When Katherine Philips was born, Thomas Dekker was about 60.
Katherine Philips was about 9 when Thomas Dekker died.
On the map
About 1 km separate London, England from London, England. Both have ground in London.
Katherine Philips
Thomas Dekker
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
Katherine Philips only
From the biographies
london
social
Katherine Philips: orinda, society of friendship, friendship's mystery, james philips, cardiganshire, london, puritan culture, civil wars. Thomas Dekker: london, the shoemaker’s holiday, satiromastix, ben jonson, philip henslowe, old fortunatus, war of the theatres, the gull’s hornbook.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Katherine Philips
Thomas Dekker
Emotional landscapes
Katherine Philips: Tenderness, Spirituality, Wonder. Thomas Dekker: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.