Abraham Cowley was a literary prodigy, composing a romance at ten and a book of poems while a student at Westminster. He attended Trinity College Cambridge (B.A. 1640, M.A. 1643); after he was ejected from the University in 1644 he followed the court to Paris. Returning to England in 1654 Cowley was imprisoned as a secret agent. Upon his release he studied medicine ( M.D. 1655). Cowley was not rewarded as he felt he deserved and spent his last years in retirement, where he wrote the Essays which proved to be his most enduring work.
TEXT RECORDS:
1650The Guardian; a Comedie.
1650To Sir William D'Avenant, upon his two first Books of Gondibert, finish'd before his Voyage to America.
1656Davideis, a Sacred Poem of the Troubles of David. In Four Books.
1664 ca.Of Myself.
PUBLICATIONS:
Poeticall blossomes. 1633, 1636.
Loves riddle: a pastoral comaedie. 1638.
Naufragium joculare: comedia. 1638.
Prologue and epilogue [from Guardian]. 1642.
A satyre against separatists. 1642.
A satyre: the puritan and the papist. 1643.
The mistress: or several copies of love-verses. 1647.
The foure ages of England. 1648.
The guardian: a comedie. 1650.
Poems. 1656.
Ode, upon the blessed restoration and returne of his sacred Majestie Charles the Second. 1660.
A proposition for the advancement of experimental philosophy. 1661.
Visions and prophecies. 1661.
A. Couleii plantarum libri duo. 1662.
Verses lately written upon several occasions. 1663.
Cutter of Coleman street: a comedy. 1663.
Verses, written upon several occasions. 1663.
Works. 3 vols, 1668-89.
A poem on the late civil war. 1679.
Select works, ed. Bishop Hurd. 3 vols, 1772-77.
Prose works. 1826.
English writings, ed. A. R. Waller. 2 vols, 1905, 1906.
Poetry and prose, ed. L. C. Martin. 1949.
The civil War, ed. Allan Pritchard. 1973.
Collected works, ed. Thomas O. Calhoun, Laurence Heyworth, Allan Pritchard. 1989- .
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Westminster School
Trinity College Cambridge
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
Doctor of Medicine
courtier
poet
essayist
dramatist
physician
Richard Crashaw
Sir William Davenant
Sir John Denham
Sir Kenelm Digby
John Evelyn
Thomas Hobbes
Humphrey Moseley
Katherine Philips
Thomas Sprat
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
[portrait in Cowley, Love's Riddle (1638)]; Thomas Sprat, "An Account of the Life and Writings" in Works (1668); Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675); John Aubrey, Brief Lives (1669-1696) ed. Clark (1898) 1:189-91; William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687); Gerard Langbaine, Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691); Blount, De Re Poetica (1694); Charles Gildon, Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (1699); Giles Jacob, Poetical Register (1719); Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); John Wesley, Moral and Sacred Poems (1744); Biographia Britannica (1747-66); Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753); "Life of Cowley" Universal Magazine 14 (April 1754) 181-87 [portrait]; David Erskine Baker, Companion to the Play-House (1764); James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); Vicesimus Knox, "On the Merits of Cowley as a Poet" Essays Moral and Literary (1779) 2:75-84; Bell's Poets of Great Britain (1776-82); Samuel Johnson, Life in Works of the English Poets (1779-81); George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry (1790; 1801); "History of Knowledge, Learning, and Taste" Universal Magazine 109 (October 1801) 282-87; George Dyer, "Cantabrigiana" Monthly Magazine 16 (September 1803) 132-33; Peter L. Courtier, ed., Lyre of Love (1806); Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Samuel Egerton Brydges, "On the Latin Poems of Cowley" Censura Literaria 9 (1809) 84-94; Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); George Hardinge, "Critical Essays: Cowley" in Miscellaneous Works (1818); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); Isaac D'Israeli, "Cowley: of Melancholy" in Calamities of Authors (1812); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); Joseph Spence, Anecdotes (1820); "On the Genius of Cowley, Donne, and Cleveland" European Magazine 82 (July-August 1822) 44-48, 108-12; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Anna Brownell Jameson, Loves of the Poets (1829); Biographical Magazine 2 (1830) [portrait]; Robert Aris Willmott, "Familiar Letters of Cowley, with Notices of his Life" Fraser's Magazine 13-14 (April, August 1836) 395-409, 234-41; Robert Aris Willmott, "Cowley and his Friend, William Hervey," in Conversations at Cambridge" (1836) 67-87; Richard Cattermole, Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); Mary Russell Mitford, "Abraham Cowley" in Recollections (1852) 36-51; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Thomas Corser, Collectanea Anglo-Poetica 4 (1869) 497-502; William Cullen Bryant, "Abraham Cowley" North American Review (May 1877) in Prose Works (1884) 1:129-46; The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Venn and Venn, Alum. Cant. (1922-27); Old Westminsters (1928); Arthur H. Nethercot, Cowley, the Muses' Hannibal (1931); Bush, OHEL (1945); Robert B. Hinman, Cowley's World of Order (1960); James G. Taaffe, Cowley (1972); Cummings, Spenser: The Critical Heritage (1971); M. R. Perkin, Cowley: A Bibliography (1977); Spenser Encyclopedia, "Cowley" (1990) 199-200; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
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