Richard Rowlands, better known to history as Richard Verstegan or Verstegen, was born in London about 1550 and died in Antwerp in 1640. He belongs to that unusually rich category of Renaissance figures whose lives resist simple professional labels. He was a poet, translator, engraver, publisher, controversialist, antiquary, journalist, intelligence agent, and committed Catholic exile. He wrote in English, Latin, Dutc…
“Holland is as fertile in sects as Italy is in mushrooms: new doctrines sprout overnight from the dreams of men.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Hymn Writers, Metaphysical Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Joy, Peace
William Strode, baptized on 11 January 1602/3 and dead by 1645, belonged to that abundant but still partly shadowed generation of English writers who made the early seventeenth century one of the most inventive periods in the history of English poetry. He was a clergyman, Oxford academic, university orator, court entertainer, dramatist, and lyric poet. In each role he displayed verbal ease, learning, and an appetite…
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Devotional Poets, Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Wonder, Sorrow
