The English writer Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) was among the first to use the Pindaric ode form in English poetry. He contributed importantly to the development of the familiar essay in English. The posthumous son of a merchant, Abraham Cowley was born...

Abraham Cowley resolved, in a long prose preface to the significant 1656 volume of his poems, to write no more poetry. The tumultuous and tragic years of civil war had, he was certain, proved inimical to the poetic muse, and his own ill-fated service...

"Abraham Cowley was beloved by every muse he courted," states Henry Felton in his Dissertation on Reading the Classics (1713); Cowley excelled in every literary genre he undertook. In his early years, he was best known as a dramatist and satirist; in...

The following excerpt begins with Johnson's famous censure of seventeenth-century metaphysical poets for excessive concern with novelty, slavish adherence to fashionable style, and self-conscious displays of erudition. He considers Cowley "almost the last of that race, and undoubtedly the best, " and offers commentary on a wide range of his work. Johnson praises particular poems in the Miscellanies as well as Cowley's essays and critical writings but blames the poet for not putt...

In the essay reprinted here, Dykstal analyzes the Davideis, comparing it to the biblical epics of Torquato Tasso and John Milton, and arguing that Cowley's Christian rationalism was the principal barrier to his achieving a successful fusion of sacred material and epic form. The critic asserts that Cowley's subordination of the marvelous or mystical elements in his narrative—together with his emphasis on verisimilitude—effaces the sense of wonder inherent in the biblical story of...

In the essay below, Pritchard offers an extended evaluation of The Civil War in terms of the torrent of Royalist propaganda unleashed in the first months of the conflict. He examines various elements of the poem, including its depiction of military action, its structural design, its conservative political views, and its polemical treatment of history.