John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, was born on 1 April 1647 at Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire and died on 26 July 1680 at Woodstock Park, aged only thirty-three. Few English poets have acquired a reputation so vivid, so unstable, and so inseparable from scandal. Rochester has been remembered as a court rake, libertine, seducer, duelist, drunkard, satirist, skeptic, naval volunteer, theatrical patron, and, in the fi…
“We have a pretty witty king, Whose word no man relies on; He never said a foolish thing, Nor ever did a wise one.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Decadent Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Edward Herbert, first Baron Herbert of Cherbury, was born on 3 March 1583 at Eyton-on-Severn, near Wroxeter in Shropshire, and died in London on 20 August 1648. He belonged to a generation shaped by the last brilliance of the Renaissance and the mounting tensions that would fracture the Stuart kingdoms in civil war. Soldier, courtier, ambassador, historian, musician, autobiographer, philosopher, and poet, he seems at…
“We ought to be sorry for our sins and repent of them.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder
