Thomas Carew, born in 1595 and buried on 22 March 1640, occupies a distinctive place in English poetry as one of the most accomplished voices of the Caroline court. He is usually grouped with the Cavalier poets, a loose modern designation for writers associated with the court of Charles I, with royalist culture, and with an ideal of elegance, loyalty, sociability, erotic wit, and cultivated pleasure. Yet Carew is mor…
“Though Ben had barrelled up a great deal of knowledge, yet it seems he had not read the Ethics, which, among other Precepts of Morality, forbid Self-commendation.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sensuality, Tenderness
Robert Herrick was born in London on 24 August 1591 and died at Dean Prior in Devon on 15 October 1674. He is remembered as one of the supreme lyric poets of seventeenth-century England: a writer capable of making a four-line epigram feel as complete as a polished jewel, and of making flowers, ribbons, country festivals, kisses, bells, tears, and prayer seem charged with extraordinary significance. His poetry is ofte…
“The soul's a thing immortal, and therefore must not be enslaved to mortal things.”
Neighbourhood:
Cavalier Poets, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
