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
Thomas Nashe
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 63%
Blended 63%
Swap sides
Another related pair
Thomas Nashe, baptized on 26 November 1567 and probably born shortly before that date in Lowestoft, Suffolk, was one of the most brilliant, abrasive, inventive, and precarious figures of the English Renaissance. He died sometime after 1599 and is conventionally assigned a death date of about 1601, though the circumstances and exact date remain unknown. In a life that appears to have lasted little more than three deca…
“Poetry is the honey of all flowers, the quintessence of all sciences, the marrow of wit, and the very phrase of angels.”
In time
John Farmer
Thomas Nashe
1567
1605
They overlapped for 32 years (1570–1601).
When John Farmer was born, Thomas Nashe was about 3.
John Farmer was about 31 when Thomas Nashe died.
On the map
About 168 km separate London, England from Lowestoft, Suffolk, 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.
No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.
From the biographies
verbal
John Farmer: english madrigals, christ church cathedral, edward somerset, fair phyllis, the first set of english madrigals, elizabethan society, renaissance music, madrigal genre. Thomas Nashe: lowestoft, william nashe, janet nashe, the anatomy of absurdity, pierce penniless, a litany in time of plague, martin marprelate controversy, university wits.
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.
1595
Execution at Tyburn
John Farmer
1602
Relocation to London
Thomas Nashe
Emotional landscapes
John Farmer: Tenderness, Joy, Longing. Thomas Nashe: Despair, Sorrow, Fear.