There is something peculiarly poignant about a poet who burns with such fierce satirical energy, who seems to embody the very spirit of angry, impatient youth, and who then dies at thirty years old — as if the intensity of the flame had consumed the wick. John Oldham lived only three decades, yet in that brief span he produced a body of work remarkable for its ferocity, its metrical daring, and its willingness to dra…
“Lord of myself, accountable to none, but to my conscience, and my God alone.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Restoration Poets, Satirical Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Wonder, Spirituality
Thomas d’Urfey, born about 1653 and dead on 26 February 1723, was one of the most tireless entertainers in English literary history: a playwright, lyricist, ballad-writer, compiler, performer, political satirist, and convivial public personality whose career stretched from the high Restoration of Charles II to the early Hanoverian age. He has seldom occupied the first rank in conventional histories of English literat…
“My good or ill stars ordained me to be a knight errant in the fairy fields of poetry.”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets, Poet-Musicians, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Tenderness, Wonder
