Henry Vaughan, born on 17 April 1621 and buried on 23 April 1695, was one of the most distinctive English-language poets of the seventeenth century: a Welsh country gentleman, Royalist, medical practitioner, translator, religious writer, and visionary poet whose work transformed private devotion into startling images of light, landscape, childhood, death, and eternity. He is usually grouped with the metaphysical poet…
“Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Welsh Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Spirituality, Longing
John Cooper, better known under the Italianate name Giovanni Coperario, was born about 1570 and died in 1626. He belongs to that fascinating generation of English composers who lived through the final decades of Elizabeth I’s reign and the culturally ambitious courts of James I and Charles I. His surviving music does not offer the sheer quantity of William Byrd’s output, the public prominence of Thomas Morley’s print…
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing