Henry Carey, poet, songwriter, composer, dramatist, performer, and irrepressible satirist, was born about 26 August 1687 and died on 5 October 1743. He belonged to that unusually fertile and unruly generation of English writers who worked in the crowded space between coffeehouse wit, commercial theater, political controversy, popular song, and the new culture of print. His name is not as immediately familiar as those…
“Being then young and obscure, he was very much ridicul'd by some of his Acquaintance for this Performance.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Satirical Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Sensuality, Tenderness
Thomas Shadwell, born about 1642 and dead on 19 November 1692, was one of the busiest, most contentious, and most revealing writers of England’s Restoration. He wrote poems, prologues, epilogues, political satires, translations, and royal panegyrics, but his chief achievement was in the theatre. For more than two decades he supplied London with comedies whose streets, taverns, gaming rooms, spas, lodgings, laboratori…
“Every man loves what he is good at.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Light Verse Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Fear, Longing
