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Gondibert An Heroick Poem
''Gondibert'' is an epic poem by William Davenant. In it he attempts to combine the five-act structure of English Renaissance drama with the Homeric and Virgilian epic literary tradition. Davenant also sought to incorporate modern philosophical theories about government and passion, based primarily in the work of Thomas Hobbes, to whom Davenant sent drafts of the poem for review. A lengthy philosophical preface takes the form of a letter to Hobbes, and is printed in the first edition with Hobbes' own reply and comments. Though Davenant asserted that the completed work would be in five sections or "books", only the first two books and part of the third book were completed. Publication history The philosophical Preface with Hobbes's reply to Davenant appeared, along with a few stanzas of the poem, in an edition published during Davenant's exile in Paris in 1650. There were two editions of the partially completed text in London in 1651. A 1652 edition contains the first two books and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum. Biography Early life Davenant is believed to have been born in late February, 1606 in Oxford, the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Davenant, proprietor of the Crown Tavern (or Crown Inn) and Mayor of Oxford. He was baptised on 3 March, his godfather sometimes being said to have been William Shakespeare, who, according to John Aubrey, had stayed frequently at the Crown during his travels between London and Stratford-upon-Avon.Edmond, M., ''Yeomen, Citizens, Gentlemen, and Players: The Burbages and Their Connections'', R. B. Parker (ed), ''Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum'', University o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl Of Rochester
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 – 26 July 1680) was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court. The Restoration reacted against the "spiritual authoritarianism" of the Puritan era. Rochester embodied this new era, and he became as well known for his rakish lifestyle as for his poetry, although the two were often interlinked. He died as a result of venereal disease at the age of 33. Rochester was described by his contemporary Andrew Marvell as "the best English satirist," and he is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned among the Restoration wits. His poetry was widely censored during the Victorian era, but enjoyed a revival from the 1920s onwards, with reappraisals from noted literary figures such as Graham Greene and Ezra Pound. The critic Vivian de Sola Pinto linked Rochester's libertinism to Hobbesian materialism. During his lifetime, Rochester was best known for ''A Satyr Against Reason and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1651 Poems
Events January–March * January 1 – Charles II of England, Charles II is crowned King of Scots at Scone, Scotland, Scone (Scottish coronation of Charles II, his first crowning). * January 24 – Parliament of Boroa in Chile: Spanish and Mapuche authorities meet at Boroa, renewing the fragile peace established at the parliaments of Quillín, in Parliament of Quillín (1641), 1641 and 1647. * February 22 – St. Peter's Flood: A first storm tide in the North Sea strikes the coast of Germany, drowning thousands. The island of Juist is split in half, and the western half of Buise is probably washed away. * March 4 – St. Peter's Flood: Another storm tide in the North Sea strikes the Netherlands, flooding Amsterdam. * March 6 – The town of Kajaani was founded by Count Per Brahe the Younger. * March 15 – Prince Aisin Gioro Fulin attains the age of 13 and becomes the Shunzhi Emperor of China, which had been governed by a regency since the de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers forms the Concord River. The area that became the town of Concord was originally known as Musketaquid, an Algonquian word for "grassy plain." Concord was established in 1635 by a group of English settlers; by 1775, the population had grown to 1,400. As dissension between colonists in North America and the British crown intensified, 700 troops were sent to confiscate militia ordnance stored at Concord on April 19, 1775.Chidsey, p. 6. This is the total size of Smith's force. The ensuing conflict, the battles of Lexington and Concord, were the incidents (including the shot heard round the world) that triggered the American Revolutionary War. A rich literary community developed in Concord during the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience (Thoreau), Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his nature writing, writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary language, literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical Asceticism, austerity, and attent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walden
''Walden'' (; first published in 1854 as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance. ''Walden'' details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau makes precise scientific observations of nature as well as metaphorical and poetic uses of natural phenomena. He identifies many plants and animals by both their popular and scientific names, records in detail the color and clarity of different bodies of water, precisely dates and describes the freezing and thawing of the pond, and recounts his experiments to m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for ''The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse and is often considered one of the greatest poets in the English language. Life Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552; however, there is still some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. His parenthood is obscure, but he was probably the son of John Spenser, a journeyman clothmaker. As a young boy, he was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors' School and matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he became a friend of Gabriel Harvey and later consulted him, despite their differing views on poetry. In 1578, he became for a short time secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester. In 1579, he published ''The Shepheardes Calender'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' of 1888 called one ode "one of the final masterpieces". Jorge Luis Borges named his first encounter with Keats an experience he felt all his life. Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", "Od ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hannah Cowley (writer)
Hannah Cowley (14 March 1743 – 11 March 1809) was an English playwright and poet. Although Cowley's plays and poetry did not enjoy wide popularity after the 19th century, critic Melinda Finberg rates her as "one of the foremost playwrights of the late eighteenth century" whose "skill in writing fluid, sparkling dialogue and creating sprightly, memorable comic characters compares favourably with her better-known contemporaries, Goldsmith and Sheridan." Cowley's plays were produced frequently in her lifetime. The major themes of her plays – including her first, ''The Runaway'' (1776), and her major success, which is being revived, ''The Belle's Stratagem'' (1780) – revolve around marriage and how women strive to overcome the injustices imposed by family life and social custom. Early success Born Hannah Parkhouse, she was the daughter of Hannah (née Richards) and Philip Parkhouse, a bookseller in Tiverton, Devon. Sources disagree about some details of her married life, cit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Chalmers
Alexander Chalmers (29 March 1759 – 29 December 1834) was a Scottish writer. He was born in Aberdeen. Trained as a doctor, he gave up medicine for journalism, and was for some time editor of the ''Morning Herald''. Besides editions of the works of William Shakespeare, James Beattie, Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, Joseph Warton, Alexander Pope, Edward Gibbon, and Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, he published '' A General Biographical Dictionary'' in 32 volumes (1812–1817); a ''Glossary to Shakspeare'' (1807); an edition of George Steevens's ''Shakespeare'' (1809); and the ''British Essayists'', beginning with the ''Tatler'' and ending with the ''Observer'', with biographical and historical prefaces and a general index. A quotation is often attributed to him: "The three grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for." His papers are held at the National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Thompson (poet)
Rev. William Thompson (1712 - 1766) was an 18th-century English poet. Life William Thompson was the son of Rev. Francis Thompson, vicar of Brough in Westmoreland, NW England, who died in 1735; William's date of birth is not known. William Thompson studied at Queen's College, Oxford, which his father had also attended, and graduated with a Master of Arts in 1738, afterwards becoming a fellow of the college. Thompson became rector of Hampton Poyle with South Weston in Oxfordshire. He published his collected poems in two volumes in 1757. Work He is best known for the long poem ''Sickness'' (1746), which discusses various illnesses including melancholy, fever, consumption, and variola. Other poems include ''Epithalamium,'' ''Nativity,'' and ''Hymn to May,'' as well as a panegyric to Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Fairfax
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron (17 January 161212 November 1671), also known as Sir Thomas Fairfax, was an English politician, general and Parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War. An adept and talented commander, Fairfax led Parliament to many victories, notably the crucial Battle of Naseby, becoming effectively military ruler of England, but was eventually overshadowed by his subordinate Oliver Cromwell, who was more politically adept and radical in action against Charles I. Fairfax became unhappy with Cromwell's policy and publicly refused to take part in Charles's show trial. Eventually he resigned, leaving Cromwell to control the country. Because of this, and also his honourable battlefield conduct and his active role in the Restoration of the monarchy after Cromwell's death, he was exempted from the retribution exacted on many other leaders of the revolution. Early life Thomas Fairfax was born at Denton Hall, halfway between Ilkley and Ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
