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
Robert Jones
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 69%
Blended 69%
Swap sides
Another related pair
In the twilight of the Elizabethan era and the dawn of the Jacobean age, when England’s cultural landscape shimmered with the brilliance of Shakespeare, Dowland, and Campion, there moved a quieter, yet no less gifted, musical poet: Robert Jones. Though his name today may not echo as loudly in concert halls or academic symposia as those of his more celebrated contemporaries, Jones’s contribution to the English lute so…
In time
John Farmer
Robert Jones
1570
1617
They overlapped for 29 years (1577–1605).
When Robert Jones was born, John Farmer was about 7.
Robert Jones was about 28 when John Farmer died.
On the map
About 263 km separate London, England from Wales. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
Robert Jones
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. Robert Jones: wales, university of oxford, the first booke of songes or ayres, sir john salusbury, the second booke, the third booke, the fourth booke, the fifth booke.
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
Robert Jones
Emotional landscapes
John Farmer: Tenderness, Joy, Longing. Robert Jones: Sorrow, Longing, Irony.