Cavalier poets

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Cavalier poets

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Cavalier poets a group of English poets associated with Charles I and his exiled son. Most of their work was done between c.1637 and 1660. Their poetry embodied the life and culture of upper-class, pre-Commonwealth England, mixing sophistication with naïveté, elegance with raciness. Writing on the courtly themes of beauty, love, and loyalty, they produced finely finished verses, expressed with wit and directness. The poetry reveals their indebtedness to both Ben Jonson and John Donne. The leading Cavalier poets were Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Thomas Carew.

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Cavaliers

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | | © The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature 2003, originally published by Oxford University Press 2003. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Cavaliers, a name given to supporters of Charles I in the Civil War, derived from the Italian for horseman or knight and carrying overtones of courtly gallantry. ‘Cavalier lyrics’ is the term applied to lyrics by Carew, Lovelace, Suckling, and Herrick (the last of whom was not a courtier) and to work similar in tone and style. These poets were not a formal group, but all were influenced by Jonson and like him paid little attention to the sonnet; their lyrics on the whole are distinguished by short lines, precise but idiomatic diction, and an urbane and graceful wit.

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Cavaliers." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 28 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Cavaliers." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (November 28, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-Cavaliers.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Cavaliers." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-Cavaliers.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article The Triumph of Augustan Poetics: English Literary Culture from Butler to Johnson and The Just and the Lively: The Literary Criticism of John Dryden.
Magazine article from: Yearbook of English Studies; 1/1/2001
Free Article Seventeenth-Century British Poetry 1603-1660.(Brief article)(Book review)
Magazine article from: Contemporary Review; 12/22/2006
Free Article Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War, 1642-1649.(Brief Article)
Magazine article from: The Historian; 6/22/1994

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