John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, was born on 1 April 1647 at Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire and died on 26 July 1680 at Woodstock Park, aged only thirty-three. Few English poets have acquired a reputation so vivid, so unstable, and so inseparable from scandal. Rochester has been remembered as a court rake, libertine, seducer, duelist, drunkard, satirist, skeptic, naval volunteer, theatrical patron, and, in the fi…
“We have a pretty witty king, Whose word no man relies on; He never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Decadent Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Robert Herrick was born in London on 24 August 1591 and died at Dean Prior in Devon on 15 October 1674. He is remembered as one of the supreme lyric poets of seventeenth-century England: a writer capable of making a four-line epigram feel as complete as a polished jewel, and of making flowers, ribbons, country festivals, kisses, bells, tears, and prayer seem charged with extraordinary significance. His poetry is ofte…
“The best of life is but intoxication, and the soberest men are the most deceived.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
