Richard Barnefield, baptized on 29 June 1574 and buried in 1627, occupies a small but remarkably provocative place in the history of English Renaissance poetry. He was not among the most prolific writers of the Elizabethan age, nor did he sustain a public literary career over decades as Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, or William Shakespeare did. Yet the poems he published during a brief period in the 1590s have continued…
“This protestation (I hope) will satisfie th' indifferent: and as for them that are maliciously enuious, as I cannot, so I care not to please.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Elizabethan Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets
Emotional landscape: Sensuality, Longing, Wonder
Sir John Beaumont, first baronet of Grace Dieu, was born about 1583 and died on 19 April 1627. He belongs to that large and fascinating company of English writers whose work has survived more quietly than their fame deserved. In his own lifetime and for generations afterward, he was known not merely as a poet but as a gentleman of substantial standing: a landowner in Leicestershire, a member of a distinguished legal…
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Despair
