Richard Lovelace, born on 9 December 1617 and dead by 1657, occupies a distinctive place in English literary history as one of the finest poets associated with the Cavalier tradition. His name is inseparable from two of the most frequently quoted lyrics of the seventeenth century: “I could not love thee, Dear, so much, / Loved I not Honour more” and “Stone walls do not a prison make, / Nor iron bars a cage.” Such mem…
Compare Poets
Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Poet A
Richard Lovelace
Poet B
Edward Taylor
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 67%
Blended 67%
Swap sides
Another related pair
Edward Taylor was born about 1642, probably in Sketchley, Leicestershire, England, into a world in which political upheaval and religious conviction entered ordinary life with unusual force. He died on 24 June 1729 in Westfield, Massachusetts, after nearly six decades as that frontier town’s minister, physician, teacher, community counselor, and private poet. During his lifetime he was known chiefly as a learned and…
In time
Richard Lovelace
Edward Taylor
1617
1729
They overlapped for 16 years (1642–1657).
When Edward Taylor was born, Richard Lovelace was about 25.
Edward Taylor was about 15 when Richard Lovelace died.
On the map
About 230 km separate Woolwich, Kent, England from Sketchley, Leicestershire, England. Both have ground in England.
Richard Lovelace
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
From the biographies
Richard Lovelace: cavalier tradition, charterhouse school, gloucester hall, to althea, from prison, to lucasta, going to the warres, sir william lovelace, george goring, royalist. Edward Taylor: sketchley, leicestershire, westfield, harvard college, elizabeth fitch, james fitch, the lay-man’s lamentation, upon wedlock, and death of children.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
1649
Trial of Charles I
1651
Battle of Worcester
Richard Lovelace
Edward Taylor
1668
Migration to America
Emotional landscapes
Richard Lovelace: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness. Edward Taylor: Spirituality, Sorrow, Despair.