William Alexander, later the first Earl of Stirling, was born about 1567 at Menstrie in Clackmannanshire, near Stirling, Scotland, and died in London on 12 February 1640. He belonged to that distinctive early Stuart class of men for whom poetry, government service, courtly advancement, religious reflection, and colonial ambition were not separate callings but overlapping forms of public life. In his own century he wa…
“Colonisers should intermarry to form such lawful alliances that by admitting equality remove contempt.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
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
