Poetry of the Civil War Period

Key Terms

 Caroline  During the reign or court of Charles I (1625-1649)

 Regicide  The execution of a monarch

 Interregnum  Period between 1649-1660 - no reigning monarch

 Restoration  Return of Charles II to throne (1660-1688)

 Coterie  C16-17th literary circle (often the court) where

manuscripts were circulated and texts were sung
or performed
 Cavalier Poets

 Thomas Carew (1594-1640)
 Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
 John Suckling (1609-42)
 William Davenant (1606-1668)
 Richard Lovelace (1618-57)
 Civil War Timeline

 1625-49: Charles I, King of England
 1629-40: Personal rule of Charles I, without Parliaments
 1639-40: Scottish war; Suckling assists Charles I; Carew dies of syphilis and his Poems published
posthumously
 1641: Revolt in Ireland
 1642-5: Civil war
 1642: Lovelace imprisoned by Parliament; Suckling dies
 1645: Formation of New Model Army; Parliamentary victory at Battle of Naseby
 1646: Suckling’s poetry published under title of Fragmenta Aurea
 1647: John Wilmot, future Earl of Rochester is born
 1648: Second civil war; Herrick publishes Hesperides; Lovelace imprisoned again, prepares Lucasta in prison
 1649: Trial and execution of Charles I; Republic established; Lovelace publishes Lucasta
 1653-58: Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell
 1658: Death of Cromwell and succession by son Richard
 1659: Richard abdicates; Long Parliament and republic restored
 1660: Long Parliament dissolved; House of Lords restored; episcopacy restored; Charles II accepted as King
of England
 The Mob of Gentlemen

 But for the wits of either Charles’s days,
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease;
Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more,

(Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace. Book II, Ep. I, l. 108. [1733-36])

 Cavalier Style

Anthony van Dyck, "Charles I, King of England, from Three Angles," c. 1638
Cornwall Record Office
Reference Number: RS/1/560/2
Cost of cavalier dress, for Captain Harris
4 Feb 1641
 Etymology of the term
Cavalier

 1598 R. Barret Theorike & Prac. Mod. Warres “Cauaglere,
an Italian word signifieth a Gentleman seruing on
horsebacke.”

 1656 T. Blount Glossographia. “Cavalier, Cavalero, a

knight or gentleman, serving on horseback, a man of
arms.”
 1642. Petition Lords & Commons. 17 June. “That your Majesty
would please to dismiss your extraordinary Guards, and
the Cavaliers and others of that Quality, who seem to have
little Interest or Affection to the publick Good, their
Language and Behaviour speaking nothing but Division
and War.”

 1642. King Charles I Answer to the Petition. “For the

language and behaviour of the Cavaliers (a word by what
mistake soever it seemes much in disfavour) there hath not
been the least complaint here.

 1651. William Lilly in Monarchy or no Monarchy (Lilly was

anti-royalist and describes what he witnessed during
Christmas of 1641–2) “The Courtiers againe, wearing long
Haire and locks, and alwayes Sworded, at last were called
by these men [the Puritans] Cavaliers; and so after this
broken language had been used a while, all that adhered
unto the Parlament were termed Round-heads; all that
tooke part or appeared for his Majestie, Cavaliers, few of
the vulgar knowing the sence of the word Cavalier.”
Two Images of the Cavalier

 “To Parliamentary apologists, the armed supporters
of the king were whoremongering and raping
roisterers, their mouths full of the foulest
blasphemies, their bellies swilled with alcohol, their
bodes wracked with venereal disease, their attire
manifesting the wildest excesses of continental
fashion”

Thomas N. Corns, "Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace." The
Cambridge Companion to English Poetry, Donne to Marvell. (Cambridge University
Press: 1993), 202.
Two Images of the Cavalier

 GIVE me that man, that dares bestride
 The active Sea-horse, & with pride
 Through that huge field of waters ride:
 Who with his looks too, can appease
 The ruffling winds and raging seas,
 In midst of all their outrages.
 This, this a virtuous man can doe,
 Saile against Rocks, and split them too;
 I! and a world of Pikes passe through.

Herrick “His Cavalier” Hesperides 1648



 Cavalier Poetics

 Recklessness and daring are wedded to honour and
virtue
 Coterie ideals of loyal friendship are crucial to the
survival of the political cause and poetic endeavour
 Love and eroticism are deployed as a vehicle for politics
 Images of war conjoined with images of desire
 Love and loyalty for the mistress is an allegory for love for
the King
 Honour and virtue in sexual love proves honour and virtue
in political life
 Richard Lovelace (1618-57)

 Lucasta (1649) and Lucasta: Posthume Poems (1659)
 Imprisoned in 1642 and again in 1648
 Financially ruined by the royalist cause
 Seems he not fight in civil war
 Ostensibly died in poverty in 1657
 Combined warrior and lover topos in his poetry
 Love as Politics

 TELL me not (Sweet) I am unkinde,
 That from the Nunnerie
 Of thy chaste breast, and quiet minde,
 To Warre and Armes I flie.

 True ; a new Mistresse now I chase,

 The first Foe in the Field ;
 And with a stronger Faith imbrace
 A Sword, a Horse, a Shield.

 Yet this Inconstancy is such,

 As you too shall adore ;
 I could not love thee (Deare) so much,
 Lov'd I not Honour more.

Lovelace, “To Lucasta Going to the Warres” from Lucasta

 The Fallen Cavalier

 Depose your finger of that Ring,
 And Crowne mine with't awhile
 Now I restor't.—Pray, do's it bring
 Back with it more of soile ?
 Or shines it not as innocent,
 As honest, as before 'twas lent ?

 So then inrich me with that Treasure,

 Will but increase your store,
 And please me (faire one) with that pleasure
 Must please you still the more :
 Not to save others is a curse
 The blackest, when y'are ne're the worse.
Lovelace, “Sonnet” from Lucasta