Sir Richard Fanshawe, born on 12 June 1608 and dead in Madrid in June 1666, lived one of the most various and hazardous lives available to a seventeenth-century English man of letters. He was at once a poet, translator, civil servant, soldier-administrator, parliamentarian, courtier, prisoner, exile, and ambassador. His name has never become as immediately familiar as those of John Milton, Andrew Marvell, or John Dry…
Compare Poets
Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Poet A
Sir Richard Fanshawe
Poet B
John Sheffield
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 76%
Poems 82%
Blended 78%
Swap sides
Another related pair
John Sheffield, who became the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, lived from 8 September 1647 to 24 February 1721, though older records occasionally create uncertainty about dates because of the calendar conventions and genealogical habits of the period. He was a nobleman, naval officer, soldier, courtier, politician, patron, critic, playwright, memoirist, and poet. Such a catalogue of roles can make him seem les…
“Sauntering was the true Sultana Queen of his Majesty's affections.”
In time
Sir Richard Fanshawe
John Sheffield
1608
1721
They overlapped for 20 years (1647–1666).
When John Sheffield was born, Sir Richard Fanshawe was about 39.
John Sheffield was about 19 when Sir Richard Fanshawe died.
On the map
About 38 km separate Hertfordshire, England from London, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
Sir Richard Fanshawe
John Sheffield
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
Sir Richard Fanshawe only
John Sheffield only
From the biographies
Sir Richard Fanshawe: madrid, the lusiad, ann fanshawe, jesus college, cavalier, the faithful shepherd, inner temple, civil war. John Sheffield: first duke of buckingham, naval officer, battle of solebay, order of the garter, essay on satire, an essay upon poetry, restoration england, james duke of york.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
1649
Trial of Charles I
1651
Battle of Worcester
Sir Richard Fanshawe
1646
Return to England
John Sheffield
1660
Education at Oxford
Emotional landscapes
Sir Richard Fanshawe: Sensuality, Wonder, Fear. John Sheffield: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.