Cavalier Poetics and the Politics of Elegance
After spending a semester incapable of doing anything other than schoolwork, I’ve found myself now on December 13th having finished all of my finals, elated to finally say that I have been accepted to present my paper, “Cavalier Poetics and the Politics of Elegance”, at the National Undergraduate Literature Conference this coming March. What seems like the first step towards a career in Early Modern academia has actually been an incredibly long time coming, and it’s something that for a while I was convinced I would never actually finish doing.
While I spend the majority of my winter break editing and perfecting and revising my paper, I thought I would share with you the (now accepted!) abstract. For those of you who are unaware, an abstract is a concise summary of a longer academic paper, research, or thesis. Throughout this process, I’ve realized that the abstract is quite honestly the hardest part. Having to take a complex, ten-page paper and boil it down to around 400 words of the best prose I’ve ever written was truly a final exam in and of itself, and I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to at least post my hard work on my terribly underused website.
As always, I appreciate your time reading, and please do wish me luck when preparing to present in front of people who without a doubt know about all of this much better than I.
Best,
Lindsey Hoover
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Writing poetry filled with musical verse, easy-to-follow rhyme schemes, and laden with Petrarchan ridicule, it is no wonder that poets like Thomas Carew, Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling found themselves as part of a literary circle fathered by the Classical School architect himself, Ben Jonson. These Cavalier poets lived in England during a time of significant political and religious conflict, and as one can expect, their art was reflective of their lives. With the turn of the century beginning with the death of Queen Elizabeth I and James VI’s transition to King James I, the 1600s commenced with a foreshadowing of the instability that would unfold in the years ahead. By the start of the English Civil War in 1642, playhouses that were barely fifty years old were being shut down, King Charles I was clashing with Parliament, and several Royalist poets were already well-versed in writing “carpe diem” poetry that merged personal longing with political and cultural anxieties.
This paper will help to define the cultural importance of Cavalier verse and its effect on British literature by comparing three poems from three key members of the Tribe of Ben: Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling. Although often remembered for their polished surfaces, their poetry reveals an intricate negotiation between pleasure, loyalty, and uncertainty. Rather than dismissing their work as merely light or indulgent, this project takes seriously the ways these poets crafted elegance and wit in order to confront larger questions about time, loyalty, honor, and the fragility of social order. Their writing demonstrates how poetic form becomes a tool for shaping identity and articulating Royalist values during a moment when those values were under intense pressure.
Through close readings of each poet’s argument, form, tone, imagery, and rhetorical strategies, this paper aims to uncover the thoughts, emotions, motives, and ambitions embedded in their verse, placing these elements in dialogue with the political turbulence of seventeenth-century England. By tracing the thematic through-lines that connect these seemingly disparate poems, it becomes possible to see how Cavalier poetry not only reflects its historical moment but actively participates in shaping the cultural imagination of the period. Ultimately, this paper argues that the work of Herrick, Lovelace, and Suckling offers a vivid lens through which to examine how art, politics, and personal expression intersect in times of profound national division.