Robert Southwell (1561 – 1595) wrote religious poetry with a didactic purpose. In the prose preface to a manuscript, addressed to his cousin, he says that poets who write of the “follies and fayninges” of love have discredited poetry to… Read More ›
Poetry in Elizabethan Period
Analysis of Philip Sidney’s Poems
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586) was educated to embrace an unusual degree of political, religious,and cultural responsibility, yet it is clear from his comments in Defence of Poesie that he took his literary role as seriously. Both this critical… Read More ›
Analysis of Andrew Marvell’s Poems
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) is firmly established today in the ranks of the Metaphysical poets, and there is no question that much of his work clearly displays the qualities appropriate to such a position. He reveals a kinship with the Metaphysical… Read More ›
Analysis of Christopher Marlowe’s Poems
Christopher Marlowe’s (1564-1593) lyric poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is known in several versions of varying length. C. F. Tucker Brooke’s 1962 reprint of his 1910edition of Marlowe’s works cites the six-stanza version of England’s Helicon, with variant… Read More ›
Analysis of Ben Jonson’s Poems
Until the last few decades, attention to Ben Jonson’s (1572-1637) poetry focused largely on the famous songs and the moving epitaphs on children. Such choices were not ill-advised, but they are unrepresentative. The works in these modes certainly rank among… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas Dekker’s Poems
Most of Thomas Dekker’s (1572 – 1632) best poetry is found in his plays; unfortunately, since most of his plays were collaborations, it is often difficult to assign particular poetic pas-sages to Dekker, and perhaps even harder to assign the… Read More ›
Analysis of George Chapman’s Poems
George Chapman’s (1559–1634) poetry is unusually diversified. It does not reveal a consistent individual style, technique, or attitude, so that an initial reading does not immediately divulge a single creative mind at work. A skilled experimenter, Chapman tried the Metaphysical… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas Carew’s Poems
A man with many masters—Donne, Jonson, Giambattista Marino—Thomas Carew (1595 –1640) was slave to none, although as a Cavalier poet he has been generally regarded as one of Jonson’s followers. Like Jonson, Carew commanded many lyric forms, and his lines… Read More ›
Analysis of Thomas Campion’s Poems
In one sense, Thomas Campion (12 February 1567 – 1 March 1620) was typically Elizabethan: Classical mythology, amorous encounters with either distant courtly ladies or willing country maids, and superficial religious emotions provided his subjects and themes. Although much of… Read More ›
English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century
A question that can be asked of any century’s poetry is whether it owes its character to “forces”—nonliterary developments to which the poets respond more or less sensitively—or whether, on the other hand, the practice of innovative and influential poets… Read More ›
English Poetry in the Sixteenth Century
The poetry of the sixteenth century defies facile generalizations. Although the same can obviously be said for the poetry of other periods as well, this elusiveness of categorization is particularly characteristic of the sixteenth century. It is difficult to pinpoint… Read More ›
Analysis of Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad
Alexander Pope has long been acknowledged as one of the leading satirists of his age. Adopting the 18th-century belief that the “lash” of satire could lead to change, he applied that lash liberally in various works targeting those who established… Read More ›
Analysis of Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village
When Oliver Goldsmith wrote his 431-line poem in rhyming couplets The Deserted Village (1770), he exhibited the talent for shrewd observation and scene for which he had gained a reputation. He also imbued this idealization of English rural life with… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s Death Be Not Proud
While discussion continues over the order in which John Donne wrote the individual poems that compose his Holy Sonnets, the critic Helen Gardner has argued convincingly that Death Be Not Proud was published in 1633. Structured as a variant of… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s The Canonization
Critics basically agree to divide John Donne’s writing into two groups related to his life stages, his romantic, or love, poetry in the stage dating prior to 1615, and the spiritual poetry emanating from the time of his ordination in… Read More ›
Analysis of John Donne’s Batter My Heart
Critics feel fairly certain that one group of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets was published in 1633, a collection that included “Batter My Heart,” sometimes listed as “Batter My Heart, Three Person’d God.” It gained fame as a prime example of… Read More ›
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