8/2/07 - English Literature - Cavalier Poetry: Herrick, Lovelace and Carew

Does the name 'cavalier' become useful or limiting as a grouping of the three poets, Herrick, Lovelace and Carew? It doesn't work individually; the poets did not call themselves cavaliers. It was a retrospective label. The term 'cavalier' is uncertain in itself, as it refers to the royalist party of the Civil War. Yet two of the poets were dead before the war had begun, and the third was a clergyman. 'Cavalier' was used as a term of abuse; it was a propagandistic word. The word is more reflective of its Spanish definition, as someone who is part of a cavalry, who is a soldier and yet a gentleman. If we take the latter definition, then it does fit the three poets: some had come from the gentry, some were soldiers, and had affiliation with groups of gentlemen and officers in society. Courtliness was important to them; all partook in courtly ideology and moral virtue. Their social milieu fits within the limits of court life; they mixed in court with gentry, courtly intrigue and courtly ladies, e.g. Carew's elegy of Donne, A Monarch of Wit. So they considerd poetry as a courtly form. Other common aspects are their attitude towards themselves in their surrounding world, the function and form of the poetry, especially involving rules about behaviour, rituals and values of horsemanship, and a form of aesthetic attitude that underpins their works and how they perceived them. Give me that man that dares bestride The active sea-horse, and with pride Through that huge field of waters ride. Who with his looks, too, can appease The ruffling winds and raging seas, In midst of all their outrages. This, this a virtuous man can do, Sail against rocks, and split them too ; Ay, and a world of pikes pass through. [Herrick, His Cavalier] In Herrick's poem, the cavalry officer masters extraordinary natural power of his horse like the sea and tides. "Field of waters" reflects the setting of both the battlefield and the sea. His "looks" are handsome, but the word also refers to his gaze which controls the horse and the sea. There is a pun on the word "pikes", meaning both fish and the enemy's weapon. The poem is written in terms of force and grace, which are linked in aesthetics. There is also an emphasis on virtue and cultivation. The poets share worldliness, not in terms of devotion or doctrine, but in secular terms. Their work is not spiritual, but belongs to the realm of the senses of vision, touch, sound, and others. It belongs to the social world: gossip and exchanges between friends. It is written of particular occasions, so it is social and has a temporal location in the world. It is profane rather than sacred. Carew's In Answer to an Elegiacal Letter is indeed a response to a message from Townsend, asking all poets to write elegies for Charles I, who had recently died. The poem presents a model of the cavalier ideal, and passes through the aesthetic realm of tournaments, masques, etc. There is an alignment with court entertainments. It is about enjoying life, not about praising God. The cavalier poets inherited Donne's love lyrics, but used them differently. Herrick's Delight in Disorder is a contemplation of a clothed woman, in which he praises every part of her one by one (known as a blazon), but instead Herrick changes it into an aesthetic consideration - what is so bewitching about her? Disorder is attractive to the narrator; not the person or her body, but a tweak in her mode of dress. Rules are slightly bent; civility (correct dress) is combined with wildness. There is a delight in style, not a disinterested consideration of beauty. But there are hints of desirability and arousal: "wantonness." This may have wider ramifications. There is the pleasure of breaking the limits, indicated by the words "wild civility". There is a kind of royalism because the king is above the law, so seeing things in poetry is a way of breaking the rules. There is an echo of the political attitudes of the monarchy. The cavalier poets saw a move towards libertinism: a way of imagining sensual saturation beyond physical and social limits, such as is found in Carew's A Rapture. In court, the poem was condemned because it was "morally wrong." Yet it is similar to Donne's Extasie, in that there is a sense of being beyond the constraints of the everyday world, an overwhelming pleasure showing worldliness. It begins by imagining the lesser being who succumbs to "honor". This is contrasted with those who transgress "honor" and enter another realm of the "blissful shore". It is a world of sensory overload and plenitude. There are metaphors of pleasant objects such as "ivory." The souls are described as poor isolated beings cuts off from bodily pleasure. There is the metaphor of the bee and increasingly absurd imagery and hyperbole. The poem is self-aware, as it parodies itself and pokes fun. A sexual act is described in terms of geographical parts of the world. It is a phallic poem; masculine power over subservient female. Sex is described as violence redeemed with pleasure, i.e. rape or incest. It plays with its own aestheticism with intensity; the poem is treated as a game. There is the potential for irony in that the world described may not exist; it is a utopia. Lovelace's Love Made in the First Age says that the first love - the love of Adam and Eve - was better than contemporary love, which is wrong. In the Golden Age nothing was forbidden except forbidding things and no one said no. At the end, Lovelace rewrites the Fall of Man, saying that Eve refused Adam's body, so he won't give her another chance. There is the realisation that erotic fantasy such as this will never be fulfilled; therefore the poem shows self-awareness.