Thomas Heywood, born about 1574 and buried on 16 August 1641, was one of the great working writers of the English Renaissance: a playwright, actor, poet, translator, prose controversialist, civic pageant-maker, and indefatigable observer of London life. He has never possessed the singular cultural monumentality of William Shakespeare, nor the sharply defined authorial reputation of Ben Jonson, yet this apparent eclip…
“Seven cities warred for Homer being dead, who living had no roof to shroud his head.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Longing, Sensuality
James Graham, first Marquess of Montrose, was born in 1612 and died on 21 May 1650. He occupies an unusual place in British literary and political history: a Scottish aristocrat whose short life contained religious revolution, civil war, spectacular military success, exile, defeat, and execution; a Royalist commander remembered as “the Great Montrose”; and a poet whose surviving verses, though few, have remained memo…
“I am come hither to die as a good Christian and a loyal subject, in the faith of Christ and the service of my king.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Fear
