John Farmer, born around 1570 and believed to have died sometime after 1601, perhaps as late as about 1605, occupies a curious and attractive place in the history of English Renaissance music. He was neither as prolific as Thomas Morley nor as institutionally prominent as William Byrd; he did not leave behind a large body of sacred music, a long record of court employment, or a biography richly documented by letters…
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
John Farmer
Poet B
John Attey
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.
Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 76%
Blended 76%
Swap sides
Another related pair
In the twilight years of the English Renaissance, as the golden age of the madrigal began to fade and the court of King James I embraced new continental fashions, a composer emerged whose delicate art would capture the essence of a transforming musical landscape. John Attey, though his name may not resonate with the same authority as his contemporaries John Dowland or Thomas Campion, created a body of work that stand…
In time
John Farmer
John Attey
1570
1640
They overlapped for 8 years (1598–1605).
When John Attey was born, John Farmer was about 28.
John Attey was about 7 when John Farmer died.
On the map
About 289 km separate London, England from Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
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
From the biographies
music
composer
John Farmer: english madrigals, christ church cathedral, edward somerset, fair phyllis, the first set of english madrigals, elizabethan society, renaissance music, madrigal genre. John Attey: english renaissance, king james i, west country, somerset, the first booke of ayres, sweet was the song the virgin sang, on a time the amorous silvy, come, follow me, my wandering mind.
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.
John Farmer
1602
Relocation to London
John Attey
1620
Relocation to London
Emotional landscapes
John Farmer: Tenderness, Joy, Longing. John Attey: Tenderness, Spirituality, Joy.