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On The Death Of Mr. Crashaw
"On the Death of Mr. Crashaw" is an elegy by English poet Abraham Cowley in commemoration of his friend Richard Crashaw death. First published in 1656, it is considered by literary critics as one of Cowley's greatest poems. Synopsis The poem celebrates the life of Richard Crashaw, who is described as "Poet and Saint". The narrator suggests that Crashaw's poems have a heavenly quality. He remarks that his "songs" bring poetry "nobly back to their Holy Land" and that they will be sung with the angel "ayres divine". Analysis David Trotter writes that the opening lines single "(Crashaw) out from the throng of profane poets", whereas throughout the rest of the poem, Crashaw "saintliness" is contrasted with the "weaker—sometimes false—codes" and "relative homelessness" of the narrator. For instance, the narrator expresses his "despair at the single dimension of modern concerns" due to the use of the "weak parenthesis" in "(Vain men!)". N. K. Sugimura suggests that Cowley "may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Cowley
Abraham Cowley (; 161828 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his ''Works'' published between 1668 and 1721. Early life and career Cowley's father, a wealthy citizen, who died shortly before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of ''The Faerie Queene''. This became the favourite reading of her son, and he had read it twice before he was sent to school. As early as 1628, that is, in his tenth year, he composed his ''Tragicall Historie of Piramus and Thisbe'', an epic romance written in a six-line stanza, a style of his own invention. It is not too much to say that this work is the most astonishing feat of imaginative precocity on record; it is marked by no great faults of immaturity, and possesses constructive merits of a very high order. Two years later, Cowl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead". History The Greek term ἐλεγείᾱ (''elegeíā''; from , , ‘lament’) originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included epitaphs, sad and mournful songs, and commemorative verses. The Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satirical subject matter. Oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead". History The Greek term ἐλεγείᾱ (''elegeíā''; from , , ‘lament’) originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included epitaphs, sad and mournful songs, and commemorative verses. The Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satirical subject matter. Oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Crashaw
Richard Crashaw (c. 1613 – 21 August 1649) was an English poet, teacher, High Church Anglican cleric and Roman Catholic convert, who was one of the major metaphysical poets in 17th-century English literature. Crashaw was the son of a famous Anglican divine with Puritan beliefs who earned a reputation as a hard-hitting pamphleteer and polemicist against Catholicism. After his father's death, Crashaw was educated at Charterhouse School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. After taking a degree, Crashaw taught as a fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge and began to publish religious poetry that expressed a distinct mystical nature and an ardent Christian faith. Crashaw was ordained as a clergyman in the Church of England and in his theology and practice embraced the High Church reforms of Archbishop Laud. Crashaw became infamous among English Puritans for his use of Christian art to decorate his church, for his devotion to the Virgin Mary, for his use of Catholic vestments, and for man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Battista Maria Pallotta
Giovanni Battista Maria Pallotta (also Palotta or Palotto) (23 January, 1594 – 22 January, 1668) was an Italian Catholic Cardinal. Early life Pallotta was born in 1594 in Caldarola to a well respected family. He was the nephew of Cardinal Giovanni Evangelista Pallotta who left him a considerable inheritance''Pope Alexander the Seventh and the College of Cardinals'' by John Bargrave, edited by James Craigie Robertson (reprint; 2009) which allowed him to be educated and take up an ecclesiastic career in Rome. Governor of Rome He was educated in Perugia and then went to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Paul V.S. Miranda: Giovanni Pallotta He was appointed Governor of Rome by and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henrietta Maria
Henrietta Maria (french: link=no, Henriette Marie; 25 November 1609 – 10 September 1669) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from her marriage to King Charles I on 13 June 1625 until Charles was executed on 30 January 1649. She was mother of his sons Charles II and James II and VII. Contemporaneously, by a decree of her husband, she was known in England as Queen Mary, but she did not like this name and signed her letters "Henriette R" or "Henriette Marie R" (the "R" standing for ''regina'', Latin for "queen".) Henrietta Maria's Roman Catholicism made her unpopular in England, and also prohibited her from being crowned in a Church of England service; therefore, she never had a coronation. She immersed herself in national affairs as civil war loomed, and in 1644, following the birth of her youngest daughter, Henrietta, during the height of the First English Civil War, was compelled to seek refuge in France. The execution of Charles I in 1649 left her impoverished. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated ''The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue ''The History of R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Essay On Man
''An Essay on Man'' is a poem published by Alexander Pope in 1733–1734. It was dedicated to Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, (pronounced 'Bull-en-brook') hence the opening line: "Awake, St John...". It is an effort to rationalize or rather "vindicate the ways of God to man" (l.16), a variation of John Milton's claim in the opening lines of ''Paradise Lost'', that he will "justifie the wayes of God to men" (1.26). It is concerned with the natural order God has decreed for man. Because man cannot know God's purposes, he cannot complain about his position in the great chain of being (ll.33-34) and must accept that "Whatever is, is right" (l.292), a theme that was satirized by Voltaire in ''Candide'' (1759). More than any other work, it popularized optimistic philosophy throughout England and the rest of Europe. Pope's ''Essay on Man'' and ''Moral Epistles'' were designed to be the parts of a system of ethics which he wanted to express in poetry. ''Moral Epistles'' has be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, Pope is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry including '' The Rape of the Lock'', ''The Dunciad'', and ''An Essay on Criticism,'' and for his translation of Homer. After Shakespeare, Pope is the second-most quoted author in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations'', some of his verses having entered common parlance (e.g. "damning with faint praise" or " to err is human; to forgive, divine"). Life Alexander Pope was born in London on 21 May 1688 during the year of the Glorious Revolution. His father (Alexander Pope, 1646–1717) was a successful linen merchant in the Strand, London. His mother, Edith (1643–1733), was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York. Both parents were Catholics. His mother's sister was the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1650s Poems
Year 165 (Roman numerals, CLXV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Orfitus and Pudens (or, less frequently, year 918 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 165 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * A Roman military expedition under Avidius Cassius is successful against Parthia, capturing Artaxata, Seleucia on the Tigris, and Ctesiphon. The Parthians sue for peace. * Antonine Plague: A pandemic breaks out in Ancient Rome, Rome, after the Roman army returns from Parthia. The plague significantly depopulates the Roman Empire and China. * Legio II Italica, Legio II ''Italica'' is levied by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. * Dura-Europos is taken by the Romans. * The Romans establish a garrison at Doura Europos on the Eup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
