Abraham Cowley (1618 – 28 July 1667) was an English The area now called England has been settled by people of various cultures for about 35,000 years, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant poet A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and time periods born in the City of London The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though remains a late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the seventeenth century, with 14 printings of his Works published between 1668 and 1721. ^[1]

Early life and career

His 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 parlor a copy of The Faerie Queene The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English language. It is an allegorical work, written in. This became the favorite reading of her son, and he had twice devoured it all before he was sent to school.

As early as 1628, that is, in his tenth year, he composed his Tragicall History 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 the child wrote another and still more ambitious poem, Constantia and Philetus, being sent about the same time to Westminster School The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's independent schools, with the highest Oxbridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in the world. Located in the precincts of Westminster Abbey in central London, and with a history stretching back beyond the 12th century,. Here he displayed extraordinary mental precocity and versatility, and wrote in his thirteenth year the Elegy on the Death of Dudley, Lord Carlton. These three poems of considerable size, and some smaller ones, were collected in 1633, and published in a volume entitled Poetical Blossoms, dedicated to the head master of the school, and prefaced by many laudatory verses by schoolfellows.

The author at once became famous, although he had not, even yet, completed his fifteenth year. His next composition was a pastoral comedy, entitled Love's Riddle, a marvelous production for a boy of sixteen, airy, correct and harmonious in language, and rapid in movement. The style is not without resemblance to that of Randolph, whose earliest works, however, were at that time only just printed.

In 1637 Cowley was elected into Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 160 Fellows .. Trinity considers itself to be "a world-leading academic institution with an outstanding record of education, learning and,^[2] where he betook himself with enthusiasm to the study of all kinds of learning, and early distinguished himself as a ripe scholar. It was about this time that he composed his scriptural epic on the history of King David David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Bible. He is depicted as a righteous king, although not without fault, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician and poet (he is traditionally credited with the authorship of many of the Psalms), one book of which still exists in the Latin original, the rest being superseded in favour of an English version in four books, called the Davideis, which were published after his death. The epic, written in a very dreary and turgid manner, but in good rhymed heroic verse, deals with the adventures of King David from his boyhood to the smiting of Amalek by Saul Saul (or Sha'ul, also Saul ben Kish) (Hebrew: שָׁאוּל, Modern Šaʾul Tiberian Šāʾûl, "asked for"; Arabic: طالوت, Tālūt‎; Greek: Σαούλ; Latin: Saul) (1079 - 1007 BC) was the first king of the united Kingdom of Israel (reigned 1047 - 1007) according to the Hebrew Bible. He was anointed by the prophet Samuel and, where it abruptly closes.

In 1638 Love's Riddle and a Latin comedy, the Naufragium Joculare, were printed, and in 1641 the passage of Prince Charles Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland through Cambridge gave occasion to the production of another dramatic work, The Guardian, which was acted before the royal visitor with much success. During the civil war this play was privately performed at Dublin Dublin is the largest city (primate city) and the capital of Ireland. It is officially known in Irish as Baile Átha Cliath [bˠalʲə aːha klʲiəh] or Áth Cliath [aːh cliə(ɸ)]. The English name comes from the Irish Dubh Linn meaning "black pool". It is located near the midpoint of Ireland's east coast, at the mouth of the River, but it was not printed till 1650. It is bright and amusing, in the style common to the "sons" of Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best[citation needed], and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for, the university wits who wrote more for the closet than the public stage.

Royalist in exile

The learned quiet of the young poet's life was broken up by the Civil War The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II; he warmly espoused the royalist side. He became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, but was ejected by the Parliamentarians in 1643. He made his way to Oxford, where he enjoyed the friendship of Lord Falkland, and was tossed, in the tumult of affairs, into the personal confidence of the royal family itself

After the battle of Marston Moor The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on 2 July 1644, during the First English Civil War of 1642–1646. The combined forces of the Scottish Covenanters under the Earl of Leven and the English Parliamentarians under Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Manchester defeated the Royalists commanded by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the Marquess of Newcastle he followed the queen to Paris, and the exile so commenced lasted twelve years. This period was spent almost entirely in the royal service, "bearing a share in the distresses of the royal family, or labouring in their affairs. To this purpose he performed several dangerous journeys into Jersey The Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands which are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and other rocks and reefs. Together with the Bailiwick of Guernsey, it, Scotland Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland, Flanders Flanders (Dutch: Vlaanderen , French: Flandre, German: Flandern) is the (political) community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Over the course of history, the geographical territory that was called "Flanders" has, the Netherlands The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðɚləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany, or wherever else the king's troubles required his attendance. But the chief testimony of his fidelity was the laborious service he underwent in maintaining the constant correspondence between the late king and the queen his wife. In that weighty trust he behaved himself with indefatigable integrity and unsuspected secrecy; for he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand the greatest part of all the letters that passed between their majesties, and managed a vast intelligence in many other parts, which for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights every week."

In spite of these labors he did not refrain from literary industry. During his exile he met with the works of Pindar Pindar (ca. 522–443 BC), was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his, and determined to reproduce their lofty lyric passion in English. At the same time he occupied himself in writing a history of the Civil War, which he completed as far as the battle of Newbury^{[disambiguation needed]}, but unfortunately afterwards destroyed. In 1647 a collection of his love verses, entitled The Mistress, was published, and in the next year a volume of wretched satires, The Four Ages of England, was brought out under his name, with the composition of which he had nothing to do.

In spite of the troubles of the times, so fatal to poetic fame, his reputation steadily increased, and when, on his return to England in 1656, he published a volume of his collected poetical works, he found himself without a rival in public esteem. This volume included the later works already mentioned, the Pindarique Odes, the Davideis, the Mistress and some Miscellanies. Among the latter are to be found Cowley's most vital pieces. This section of his works opens with the famous aspiration:

"What shall I do to be for ever known,

And make the coming age my own?"

It contains elegies on Wotton The son of Thomas Wotton , brother of Edward Wotton, 1st Baron Wotton, and grandnephew of the diplomat Nicholas Wotton, he was born at Bocton Hall in the parish of Bocton or Boughton Malherbe, Kent. He was educated at Winchester College and at New College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 5 June 1584, alongside John Hoskins. Two years later he, Vandyck Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of King Charles I of England and Scotland and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted, Falkland, William Hervey and Crashaw, the last two being among Cowley's finest poems, brilliant, sonorous and original; the amusing ballad of The Chronicle, giving a fictitious catalogue of his supposed amours; various gnomic pieces; and some charming paraphrases from Anacreon. The Pindarique Odes contain weighty Lines and passages, buried in irregular and inharmonious masses of moral verbiage. Not more than one or two are good throughout, but a full posy of beauties may easily be culled from them. The long cadences of the Alexandrines An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted by iambic pentameter . In non-Anglo-Saxon or French with which most of the strophes close, continued to echo in English poetry from Dryden John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott named him "Glorious John." down to Gray Thomas Gray , was an English poet, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University, but the Odes themselves, which were found to be obscure by the poet's contemporaries, immediately fell into disesteem.

The Mistress was the most popular poetic reading of the age, and is now the least read of all Cowley's works. It was the last and most violent expression of the amatory affectation of the 17th century, an affectation which had been endurable in Donne John Donne was an English poet, preacher and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and and other early writers because it had been the vehicle of sincere emotion, but was unendurable in Cowley because in him it represented nothing but a perfunctory exercise, a mere exhibition of literary calisthenics. He appears to have been of a cold, or at least of a timid, disposition; in the face of these elaborately erotic volumes, we are told that to the end of his days he never summoned up courage to speak of love to a single woman in real life. The "Leonora" of The Chronicle is said to have been the only woman he ever loved, and she married the brother of his biographer, Sprat.

Return to England

Soon after his return to England he was seized in mistake for another person, and only obtained his liberty on a bail of £1000. In 1658 he revised and altered his play of The Guardian, and prepared it for the press under the title of The Cutter of Coleman Street, but it did not appear until 1663. Late in 1658 Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader best known in England for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. Events that occurred during his reign and his politics are a cause of animosity between Ireland and the UK died, and Cowley took advantage of the confusion of affairs to escape to Paris, where he remained until the Restoration brought him back in Charles's train. He published in 1663 Verses upon several occasions, in which The Complaint is included.

Wearied with the broils and fatigues of a political life, Cowley obtained permission to retire into the country; through his friend, Lord St Albans, he obtained a property near Chertsey, and here, devoting himself to the study of botany, and buried in his books, he lived in comparative solitude until his death. He took a great and practical interest in experimental science, and he was one of those who were most prominent in advocating the foundation of an academy for the protection of scientific enterprise. Cowley's pamphlet on The Advancement of Experimental Philosophy, 1661, led directly to the foundation of the Royal Society The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London". The Society was initially an, to which body Cowley, in March 1667, at the suggestion of Evelyn, addressed an ode which is the latest and one of the strongest of his poems. He died in the Porch House, in Chertsey, in consequence of having caught a cold while superintending his farm-labourers in the meadows late on a summer evening. On 3 August, Cowley was buried in Westminster Abbey The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in Westminster, London, England, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English, later British and later beside the ashes of Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy and Spenser Edmund Spenser 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 Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English language, where in 1675 the duke of Buckingham erected a monument to his memory. His Poemata Latina, including six books "Plantarum," were printed in 1668.

Throughout their parallel lives the fame of Cowley completely eclipsed that of Milton, but posterity instantly and finally reversed the judgment of their contemporaries. The poetry of Cowley rapidly fell into a neglect as unjust as the earlier popularity had been. As a prose writer, especially as an essayist, he holds, and will not lose, a high position in literature; as a poet it is hardly possible that he can enjoy more than a very partial revival. The want of nature, the obvious and awkward art, the defective melody of his poems, destroy the interest that their ingenuity and occasional majesty would otherwise excite. He had lofty views of the mission of a poet and an insatiable ambition, but his chief claim to poetic life is the dowry of sonorous lyric style which he passed down to Dryden and his successors of the 18th century.

The works of Cowley were collected in 1668, when Thomas Sprat, afterwards bishop of Rochester, brought out a splendid edition in folio, to which he prefixed a graceful and elegant life of the poet. There were many reprints of this collection, which formed the standard edition till 1881, when it was superseded by AB Grosart's privately printed edition in two volumes, for the Chertsey Worthies library. The Essays have frequently been revived with approval.

A Satire Against Separatists, printed in 1675, has been variously attributed to Cowley and to Peter Hausted.

References

1. ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography "Abraham Cowley"
2. ^ Cowley, Abraham in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900 is a biographical register of former members of Cambridge University which was edited by John Venn and his son John Archibald Venn and published by Cambridge University Press in ten, Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted Letters Patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest continually operating book publisher, 10 vols, 1922–1958.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the day. This edition of the encyclopedia is now in the public domain, but the outdated nature, a publication now in the public domain Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property rights have expired, and/or if the intellectual property rights are forfeited. Examples include the English language, the formulae of Newtonian physics, as well as the works of Shakespeare and the patents over powered flight.
• This article incorporates public domain Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property rights have expired, and/or if the intellectual property rights are forfeited. Examples include the English language, the formulae of Newtonian physics, as well as the works of Shakespeare and the patents over powered flight text from : Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature is a collection of biographies of writers by John William Cousin , published in 1910. Most of the entries consist of only one paragraph but some entries, like William Shakespeare's, are quite lengthy. London, J. M. Dent & Sons; New York, E. P. Dutton.

External links

• Works by Abraham Cowley at Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as
• Essays by Abraham Cowley at Quotidiana.org
• Works of Abraham Cowley at Archive.org (pdf download)

Categories: 1618 births | 1667 deaths | English poets Categories: Poets by nationality | British poets | English writers | English poetry | English essayists | Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge People who attended Trinity College, a college of the University of Cambridge, as students | People from the City of London | Old Westminsters Old Westminsters are former pupils of Westminster School in London. The abbreviation OW is sometimes used to identify this, and they are collectively abbreviated as OWW | Burials at Westminster Abbey This category is intended to list persons buried in Westminster Abbey and who are included in Westminster Abbey Burials and Memorials

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