John Reynolds, born about 1588 and believed to have died about 1655, was one of the most industrious and revealing English writers of the Stuart age. He was never a canonical figure in the manner of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, or John Milton, and the details of his private life are far less securely recorded than those of such celebrated contemporaries. Yet Reynolds deserves attention precisely becau…
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 Reynolds
Poet B
Andrew Marvell
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 61%
Blended 61%
Swap sides
Another related pair
Andrew Marvell was born on March 31, 1621, in the small village of Winestead in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the son of the Reverend Andrew Marvell and Anne Pease Marvell. The family soon moved to the bustling port town of Hull when the elder Marvell was appointed lecturer at Holy Trinity Church and master of the Charterhouse, a charitable institution. Young Andrew grew up amid the sounds of the sea and the…
“I found nevertheless after the writing of that Book, that natural relenting of mind which most men feel after they have done an harsh, though necessary action.”
In time
John Reynolds
Andrew Marvell
1588
1678
They overlapped for 35 years (1621–1655).
When Andrew Marvell was born, John Reynolds was about 33.
Andrew Marvell was about 34 when John Reynolds died.
On the map
About 412 km separate Exeter, Devon, England from Winestead-in-Holderness, Yorkshire, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
John Reynolds
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
John Reynolds: exeter, protestant polemicist, dolarnys primrose, the triumphs of god's revenge, spanish match, thirty years' war, vox coeli, votivae angliae. Andrew Marvell: winestead, hull, trinity college, mary fairfax, upon appleton house, the garden, to his coy mistress, the mower's song.
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.
1649
Trial of Charles I
John Reynolds
Emotional landscapes
John Reynolds: Wonder, Joy, Tenderness. Andrew Marvell: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder.