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
Thomas Flatman
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.
Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 71%
Poems 81%
Blended 75%
Swap sides
Another related pair
Thomas Flatman was born on 21 February 1635 in London, probably in or near Aldersgate Street, though older accounts also associate his family with Red Cross Street. He died on 8 December 1688 in Three-leg Alley, in the parish of St. Bride’s, London, and was buried there. His name is not usually placed beside those of John Dryden, Andrew Marvell, John Milton, or the Earl of Rochester, yet Flatman is an unusually revea…
In time
Richard Lovelace
Thomas Flatman
1617
1688
They overlapped for 23 years (1635–1657).
When Thomas Flatman was born, Richard Lovelace was about 18.
Thomas Flatman was about 22 when Richard Lovelace died.
On the map
About 90 km separate Woolwich, Kent, England from Deptford, London, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
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
royalist
social
Richard Lovelace: cavalier tradition, charterhouse school, gloucester hall, to althea, from prison, to lucasta, going to the warres, sir william lovelace, george goring, royalist. Thomas Flatman: london, aldersgate street, three-leg alley, winchester college, new college oxford, royalist, anglican, poems and songs.
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
Richard Lovelace
Thomas Flatman
Emotional landscapes
Richard Lovelace: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness. Thomas Flatman: Sorrow, Despair, Fear.