POETRY ANTHOLOGY

Question 1

Give some examples of some Renaissance poems, what are the dates, features and sub-traditions?

Answer 1

People:
-Sir Thomas Wyatt, William Shakespeare, (John Donne), (Andrew Marvell)

Dates:

• 14th
• 17th Century, but particularly Elizabeth I onwards

Features:
-• An interest in Classical literature
• A humanist approach to life (focused on the here and now, not just life as preparation to get into heaven)

Sub-traditions:
-metaphysical

Question 2

Give examples of people, dates and features of metaphysical poetry:

Answer 2

People:
-John Donne, Andrew Marvell

Date:
-17th Century

Features:
. Highly intellectualized poetry, complexity and subtlety of thought
• Often use unusual and cleverly constructed conceits and/or incongruous
imagery
• Frequent use of paradox

Question 3

Give some examples of people, dates and features of cavalier poetry:

Answer 3

-people:
Richard Lovelace

Dates:
-c. 1642-60

Features:
• Unlike the Metaphysicals, preferred more straightforward language
• Part of a courtly culture
• Often focused on the erotic and on Carpe Diem
• Supporters of King Charles I – Royalists during the Civil War

Question 4

Give some examples of people, dates and features of restoration poetry:

Answer 4

People:
John Wilmot, Earl of
Rochester

Date:
c. 1660-1689

Features:
• Satirised social manners and sexual codes
• Full of sexual innuendo
• A focus on politics and social life rather than philosophy or nature
• A rejection of Puritan ideals

Question 5

Give some examples of people, dates, features and sub-traditions of romantic poetry:

Answer 5

People:
-William Blake (pre), Robert 
Burns (pre), Lord Byron, John 
Keats 
(Christina Rossetti sometimes 
considered) 

Dates:
c.1770-1850

Features:

• A focus on nature, often through personification of nature
• An interest in championing the normal man and even the outcasts of society
• Sometimes associated with radical and revolutionary political ideologies
• A focus on the truth of the imagination, rather than scientific truth
• Admiration for the imagination of the vision of childhood
• Interest in earlier forms of art from the Medieval and also Classical times, e.g.
ballads and stories about Greek and Roman Gods

Sub-traditions:
Sentimentalism

Question 6

Give some examples of people, dates and features of sentimentalism:

Answer 6

People:
-Robert Burns

Date:
-Mid-18th Century

Features:
• From the mid to later decades of the 18th Century
• Prioritising feeling over rational thinking.
• The awareness and concern for the suffering of others
• Over-shown feeling seen to be a strength and a sign of being a moral person

Question 7

Give some examples of people, dates, features and sub-traditions of Victorian poetry:

Answer 7

People:
Thomas Hardy, Christina
Rossetti

Dates:
1837-1901

Features:
-• A period of radical change, so hard to pinpoint specific features
• For some writers, a focus on realism – depicting the world as it is, not
romanticizing it
• Conflict between religion and science
• Included the pre-Raphaelites
• Continued interest in Classical and Medieval literature

Sub-traditions:
Pre-Raphaelite

Question 8

Give some examples of people, dates, features and sub-traditions of decadent poetry:

Answer 8

People:
-John Dowson

Dates:
-19th Century

Features:
• An ideology of excess and artificiality
• Key features: self-disgust, sickness at the world, general skepticism, delighting
in perversion, and employing crude humor and a belief in the superiority of
human creativity over logic and the natural world

Sub-traditions:
-Fin de Siecle