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.
John Sheffield
Jonathan Swift
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
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…
“Often for the king, always for the public good.”
The life of Jonathan Swift presents one of literature's most fascinating paradoxes: a clergyman who wrote with brutal satirical force, an Irishman who felt himself English, a conservative who championed the oppressed, and a misanthrope whose fury arose from disappointed idealism. Born into poverty and obscurity, Swift became one of the most powerful prose writers in the English language, creating works that continue…
“May you live all the days of your life.”
About 464 km separate London, England from Dublin, Ireland. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
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. Jonathan Swift: gulliver's travels, a modest proposal, the drapier's letters, esther johnson, william temple, the examiner, robert harley, henry st. john.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
John Sheffield: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow. Jonathan Swift: Irony, Joy, Fear.
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