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Richard Lovelace’s “To Althea, from Prison”
Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) is not quite so famous as some of the other poets featured here on Influential Lyrics, but his work offers some of the best examples of “Cavalier Poetry”–a mode of writing that came into prominence in the middle years of the 17th century. The Cavalier Poets (so named because of their loyalty
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George Herbert’s “The Collar”
George Herbert’s “The Collar” is an extraordinary poem by an extraordinary poet. The poem expresses a familiar psychological and perhaps spiritual conflict between the desire for freedom and worldly pleasure and the commitment to a more quietly constrained life of piety and religious devotion. Podcast Audio: “The Collar” I struck the board, and cry’d, No
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John Donne, “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
John Donne’s “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” was probably written to his wife Ann in 1611 when Donne was preparing to travel to the Continent. The poem, however, is much more significant than this very specific occasion might suggest. It stands both as one of the most celebrated of English love poems and also as a clear
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William Shakespeare, Sonnet #12
The 1609 publication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets raises several literary-historical questions, many of which remain unresolved, but what we do know is that most of the first 120-some sonnets appear to be addressed to a handsome young man (WH?) while the last 30 or so are about a person who has come to be known as
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Sir Thomas Wyatt, “The Long Love…”
In 1557, at a time when printed books were only just becoming generally available, a volume of poems called Songes and Sonettes was published in London by the printer Richard Tottel. More commonly known as Tottel’s Miscellany, the book made public several poems that had previously only circulated in manuscript among a few persons. One
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Sir Patrick Spens
In 1765, Bishop Thomas Percy published his 3-volume Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. The book introduced a number of late medieval poems into the English literary canon, the most famous of which is the popular ballad called “Sir Patrick Spens.” This episode includes a reading of the poem, a brief explication, and some commentary on the meaning, value, and significance of the work.
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