In the tumultuous landscape of seventeenth-century English literature, few figures shine with such early brilliance yet fade with such puzzling rapidity as Abraham Cowley. Born in 1618 in London, this prodigious poet who published his first collection at fifteen, who dazzled the cavalier court and influenced an entire generation of writers, who was buried in Westminster Abbey beside Chaucer and Spenser, somehow slipp…
“It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself; it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder
Richard Crashaw (c.1613 – 25 August 1649) stands as one of the most distinctive and polarising voices of seventeenth-century English poetry. A poet of spiritual excess, luminous devotion, and baroque extravagance, Crashaw occupies a singular position among the so-called Metaphysical poets. Where contemporaries such as Donne and Herbert often balance intellectual ingenuity with restraint, Crashaw abandons moderation a…
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
