A genre popular in early 17th century England, in which the poet compliments a wealthy patron or a friend through a description of his country house. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar It may be regarded as a sub-set of the Topographical poem. Topographical poetry or loco-descriptive poetry is a genre of poetry that describes and often praises a landscape or place
The model for the country house poem is Ben Jonson's To Penshurst, published 1616, which compliments Robert Sidney, younger brother of Sir Philip Sidney on his Penshurst Place. Benjamin Jonson ( c 11 June 1572 &ndash 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance Dramatist Robert Sidney 1st Earl of Leicester ( November 19, 1563 &ndash July 13, 1626) second son of Sir Henry Sidney, was a statesman of Sir Philip Sidney ( November 30, 1554 &ndash October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures Penshurst Place is an historic building near Tonbridge in Kent, 32 miles (50 km to the south east of London, England. The poem is full of classical allusions, to Martial and Horace, among others, and begins with the following lines alluding to Horace's Ode 2:18:
"Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show
Of touch or marble, nor canst boast a row
Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold;
Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told,
Or stair, or courts; but stand’st an ancient pile,
And these grudged at, art reverenced the while. Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial) (March 1 40 AD - ca Quintus Horatius Flaccus, ( Venosa, December 8, 65 BC - Rome, November 27, 8 BC known in the English-speaking world as Horace Ode (from the Ancient Greek) is a form of stately and elaborate lyrical verse. "
This poem was imitated in subsequent country house poems. However, Emilia Lanyer's Description of Cookham was in fact published earlier, in 1611, as a dedicatory verse at the end of her long narrative poem Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Emilia Lanier, also spelled Aemilia Lanyer, (1569-1645 was the first Englishwoman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems Salve In the Description of Cookham, Lanyer pays tribute to her patroness Margaret, Duchess of Cumberland through a description of her country seat as a paradise for literary women.
Other well-known instances of the genre include Andrew Marvell's Upon Appleton House, which describes Thomas, Lord Fairfax's country house, where Marvell was a tutor between November 1650 and the end of 1652. Andrew Marvell ( 31 March 1621 &ndash 16 August 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, and the son of a Church of Thomas Fairfax 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron (17 January 1612 &ndash 12 November 1671 was a general and parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War. The poem centres on Lord Fairfax's daughter Mary.
Thomas Carew also wrote two country house poems in the mould of To Penshurst: To Saxham and To My Friend G. Thomas Carew (pronounced like "Carey" (1595 – March 22, 1640) was an English Poet. N. , from Wrest.
Even closer to the Jonsonian paradigm is a poem by the oldest of the so-called "Sons of Ben", Robert Herrick, A Panegyric to Sir Lewis Pemberton. Robert Herrick (baptized August 24 1591 &ndashburied 15 October 1674) was a 17th century English Poet.
See also
Bibliography
- G. Descriptive poetry is the name given to a class of Literature that may be defined as belonging mainly to the 16th 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. R. Hibbard: The Country House Poem in the Seventeenth Century (1956)
- William McClung: The Country House in English Renaissance Poetry (1977)
- Hugh Jenkins: Feigned Commonwealths, the Country-House Poem and the Fashioning of the Ideal Community (1998, ISBN 0-8207-0292-7)
- Kari Boyd McBride: Country House Discourse in Early Modern England (2001)
External links
- Lanier's "Description of Cookham"
- Cousins and Webb: Appropriating and Attributing the Supernatural in the Early Modern Country House Poem
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