Lovelace, Richard

(1618-1658)

   The handsome son of a wealthy knight, he was the prototype of the ideal Cavalier. Lovelace was born in London or possibly in the Netherlands, where his father was in military service. He was educated at Charterhouse School and Gloucester Hall, Oxford. Around the age of 16 he wrote The Scholar, a comedy acted at Whitefriars, in the City of London. After Oxford he was a courtier but favored a soldier's life. A Royalist, he fought with Charles in Scotland (1639-1640) and lost everything when Charles was defeated. He was imprisoned in the Gatehouse, London, where he wrote "To Althea, from Prison," which contains the familiar lines "Stone walls do not a prison make / Nor iron bars a cage." He spent four years abroad and fought for the French against the Spaniards at Dunkerque in 1646. In 1648 he was again imprisoned, where he wrote Lucasta (1649). He died in London in misery and poverty. Some of his poems: "A Fly Caught in a Cobweb," "Against the Love of Great Ones," "Love Enthroned," "Paris's Second Judgement," "Sonnet. To Generall Goring," "The Ant," "The Faire Begger," "The Grasshopper," "The Toad and Spyder."

   Sources: Cavalier Poets: Selected Poems. Thomas Clayton, ed. Oxford University Press, 1978. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Friendship. D.J. Enright and David Rawlinson, eds. Oxford University Press, 1991. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Poems of Richard Lovelace. C.H. Wilkinson, ed. Oxford University Press, 1930, reprinted 1953. Through the Year with the Poets. Oscar Fay Adams, ed. D. Lothrop and Company, 1886.