Francis Beaumont was born in 1584, probably at Grace-Dieu, the Beaumont family’s estate near Thringstone in Leicestershire, and died in London on 6 March 1616. His life was brief even by the hazardous standards of the early seventeenth century, but his literary afterlife has been exceptionally long. As a poet, satirist, comic experimenter, and—above all—dramatist, he helped to shape the distinctive sound and structur…
“What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtle flame As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Anger, Sorrow
John Ford, baptized on 17 April 1586 and last securely documented in 1639, was one of the most daring and emotionally penetrating dramatists of England’s late Renaissance. Although he is commonly remembered as a playwright rather than as a poet in the narrower sense, poetry is inseparable from his dramatic achievement. His finest plays are built from a grave, musical, concentrated blank verse that gives private suffe…
“Greatness cannot often claim virtue by inheritance.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Sorrow
