William Congreve, born on 24 January 1670 and dead on 19 January 1729, occupies a singular place in English literary history: he was the most polished comic dramatist of the Restoration and one of the crucial artists through whom the exuberant theatre of the late seventeenth century became the poised, urbane literature of the Augustan age. His surviving dramatic career was astonishingly brief. Between 1693 and 1700 h…
“I confess freely to you, I could never look long upon a monkey, without very mortifying reflections.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Light Verse Poets, Restoration Poets, Satirical Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness
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…
“Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Decadent Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
