Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, Aemilia Lanyer,

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Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, Aemilia Lanyer,
Andrew Marvell
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Cavalier poets

• Cavalier poets is a broad description of a school
  of English poets of the 17th century, who came
  from the classes that supported King Charles I
  during the English Civil War. Much of their
  poetry is light in style, and generally secular
  in subject. They were marked out by their
  lifestyle and religion from the Roundheads, who
  supported Parliament.
• The best known of the Cavalier poets are Ben
  Jonson, Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Thomas
  Carew, and Sir John Suckling. Most of the
  Cavalier poets were courtiers.
• In fact the common factor that binds the
  cavaliers together is their use of direct and
  colloquial language expressive of a highly
  individual personality, and their enjoyment of
  the casual, the amateur, the affectionate poem
  written by the way. They are 'cavalier' in the
  sense, not only of being Royalists . . . , but in
  the sense that they distrust the over-earnest,
  the too intense. They accept the ideal of the
  Renaissance Gentleman who is at once lover,
  soldier, wit, man of affairs, musician, and poet,
  but abandon the notion of his being also a
  pattern of Christian chivalry. They avoid the
  subject of religion, apart from making one or two
  graceful speeches. They attempt no plumbing of
  the depths of the soul. They treat life
  cavalierly, indeed, and sometimes they treat
  poetic convention cavalierly too. Jokinen,
  Annlina.

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Ben Jonson

• What do you know from Anonymous?
• 1572-1637 What do these dates tell you?
• Wrote satires (plays) Volpone, Alchemist, The
  Devil is an Ass, Every Man in His Humour, etc.
  and influenced all the Jacobean and Caroline
  (James I and Charles I) playwrights
• Poems about Donne and Shakespeare
• Song, to Celia
• So influential in his day that the cavalier poets
  called themselves his sons or his tribe.

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Robert Herrick, Cavalier poet,1591-1674, son of
Ben
Herrick never married, and none of his love-poems
seem to connect directly with any one beloved
woman. He loved the richness of sensuality and
the variety of life, and this is shown vividly in
such poems as Cherry-ripe, Delight in
Disorder and Upon Julias Clothes. The
over-riding message of Herricks work is that
life is short, the world is beautiful, love is
splendid, and we must use the short time we have
to make the most of it. In many poems, the warmth
and exuberance of what seems to have been a
kindly and jovial personality comes over
strongly. Right gathering rosebuds
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Aemilia Lanyer
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Her life 1569-1645

• Born in London to immigrants, apparently
  illegitimate. Parents were musicians, possibly
  converted Jews.
• Was in Elizabeth Is court and mistress to Henry
  Carey
• She is one candidate for the dark lady of
  Shakespeare
• When she conceived a child by Carey, he had her
  married off to Alphonse Lanyer. Had miscarriages
  but had at least two children
• Published one book of poetry, proto-feminist,
  radical in both theology and politics. Has a
  tirade against class privilege
• Her The Description of Cookham why these
  poems about houses?

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Andrew Marvell 1621-1678
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Satirist, Cavalier, Metaphysical?For or against
Cromwell?

• First to write political verse satire in English
  (next quarter youll see Dryden and Pope in verse
  and Swift in prose do it)
• Defender of religious liberty and the rights of
  Parliament, enemy of court corruption
• Went to Cambridge at 12, but ran away to London
  where he was found in a bookshop
• Had to go back and get his degree

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Mysteries of his life

• No evidence that he participated in the English
  Civil War
• Lots of evidence that he traveled in Europe for
  four years, but nobody knows how or why
• Lets try to look at the politics in Upon
  Appleton House
• Three-person debates on To His Coy Mistress
• one person takes the position that this poem is
  intended to woo as a carpe diem poem.
• The second person sees it as a satire on carpe
  diem poetry.
• The third person should argue that the mistress
  is so sophisticated that she is amused by the
  irony and the almost absurd images.
• He helped John Milton, getting him out of prison
  and worked for and with him from 1657 on. He died
  4 years after Milton.