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2. Cavalier Poets
The other group prevailing
in this period was that of Cavalier poets. They were often courtiers and
squires who stood on the side of the king against the Parliament and
Puritans and called themselves “Sons of Ben Johnson”, because their verse
was frequently written with classical finish in imitation of Johnson.
The Cavalier poets wrote light poetry, polished and elegant,
amorous and gay, but often superficial. Pessimism is their dominant spirit,
for, under their light heartedness existed some foreboding of doom. Most of
their verses were short songs, pretty madrigals, and love fancies
characterized by lightness of heart and of morals. Cavalier poems have the
limpidity of the Elizabethan lyric without its imaginative flights. They are
lighter and neater but less fresh than the Elizabethan’s. The chief
representatives of this group are: Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Sir John
Suckling, Richard Lovelace, Edmund Waller, and William Davenant.
Robert
Herrick (1591-1674) was a Cambridge graduate and an Anglican clergyman. His
poetry followed the
classicism of Ben Johnson. Although less powerful, his
poems were close to life and pleasant to ear. His chief work is
Hesperides, a collection of 1200 poems and was published in 1648. To
quote from one of his best known poems, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of
Time”:
The Age is best, which is the first,
When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, goe marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
The motif of carpe diem (seize the day) is
evident in this poem.
Another member of Cavalier poets is Thomas Carew
(1594-1640). His short lyric “Persuasions to Joy: a Song” is very similar
with Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” in purport, yet more
witted in ending, “Thus either Time his sickle brings / In vain, or else in
vain his wings”. Here “sickle” echoes to the first stanza, while “wings”
echoes to the second stanza.
Although as a Cavalier poet, Carew highly praised Donne in
“An Elegy upon the Death of Dr. Donne, Dean of Paul’s”:
Here lies a king that ruled, as he thought fit,
The universal monarchy of wit ;
Here lies two flamens, and both those the best :
Apollo's first, at last the true God's priest.
Thus, he was more influenced by Donne than by Johnson.
More influences of Johnson went to John Suckling
(1609-1641) and Richard Lovelace (1618-1657). John Suckling was well-known
for his straightness. One of his masterpieces is “Why So Pale
and Wan?”
Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
…
Quit, quit for shame! This will not move;
This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The devil take her!
The poem, ending in imprecation, has gone beyond the
limitation of a love song. In the period of Civil War, English poetry had
lost the delightfulness of Spenser.
Compared with suckling, Richard Lovelace is more elegant. He
also wrote about Civil War. One of his masterpieces is “To Lucasta, On Going
to the Wars”:
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first for in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you to shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.
In the last two sentences, the poet connected love and
fame. This is the soul of the poem.
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