Aphra Behn, born around 1640 and dead on 16 April 1689, occupies a singular position in English literary history: she was a successful Restoration playwright, a daring poet, an innovator in prose fiction, a political writer, and, most importantly for later generations, a woman who openly made writing her profession. Her precise origins remain uncertain, a fact that has invited both scholarly caution and romantic spec…
“I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this royal slave, to entertain my reader with the adventures of a feigned hero.”
Neighbourhood:
LGBTQ+ Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality
Phineas Fletcher, baptized on 8 April 1582 and buried in December 1650, was one of the most ambitious English poets of the generation after Edmund Spenser. He lived through the last decades of Elizabeth I, the reigns of James I and Charles I, and the early upheavals of the Civil War, yet his own life was comparatively quiet: he was a scholar, priest, husband, father, country rector, and author. His reputation has nev…
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Nature Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Despair, Longing
