Sir John Davies, born on 16 April 1569 and dying on 8 December 1626, was one of the most unusually gifted figures of the late Elizabethan and early Stuart world: a poet of intellectual elegance, a lawyer of formidable technical ability, a parliamentarian, an administrator of colonial Ireland, and a man whose life repeatedly exposed the tension between self-command and ambition. His literary reputation rests principal…
“The English laws were not communicated to the Irish, nor the benefit and protection thereof allowed unto them, though they earnestly desired and sought the same.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Peace
John Donne was born in London in 1572, probably in January, though the exact day remains uncertain, and he died in London on 31 March 1631. Few English writers have seemed so divided within themselves, or have turned division into such memorable art. He was at once a Catholic child in a Protestant state, an ambitious courtier whose prospects were ruined by love, a husband burdened by debt and bereavement, a poet of e…
“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
