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As well as new recordings by contemporary poets the Poetry Archive also contains selections of classic poems recorded by contemporary voices.

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Poet

Robert Southwell

B. 1561 D. 1595

1 poem available

Southwell wrote most of his poems and prose when working as an underground Jesuit priest in Protestant England at a time when an active Catholic priest’s chances of survival were no more than one in three. Educated in Italy, he…

Poet

Edmund Spenser

B. 1553 D. 1599

3 poems available

Edmund Spenser is often mentioned alongside Shakespeare, Marlowe and Donne as one of the greatest poets of the Elizabethan period. He is probably best known for his long, allegorical epic poem, The Faerie Queen, which is full of medieval knights,…

Poet

Ben Jonson

B. 1572 D. 1637

1 poem available

Jonson was a skilful satirist of contemporary society, producing Volpone for the stage in 1606 and The Alchemist in 1610. It is highly likely that Shakespeare would have appeared in a production of another of Jonson’s plays, Every Man in…

Poet

Katherine Philips

B. 1632 D. 1664

1 poem available

Katherine Philips started writing soon after her marriage in 1647, aged sixteen, to James Philips. He was a prominent supporter of the Parliamentary cause, whereas Katherine enthusiastically welcomed the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. Katherine Philips formed a…

Poet

Henry King

B. 1592 D. 1669

1 poem available

The son of an influential Bishop of London, Henry King followed in his father’s footsteps to pursue a career in the Church, which culminated in his appointment as Bishop of Chichester, a position he held during a very turbulent period…

Poet

John Dryden

B. 1631 D. 1700

1 poem available

John Dryden was one of the dominant literary figures of the English Restoration period. He began his prolific and versatile writing career in the Puritan era before Charles II became king, and wrote verses on the death of Oliver Cromwell….

Poet

Charlotte Smith

B. 1749 D. 1806

2 poems available

Charlotte Turner was born in 1749 into the landed gentry. Her father owned two prosperous estates, Stoke Place in Surrey and Bignor Park in Sussex, but gambling losses destroyed his fortune; aged fifteen Charlotte was married off to the wealthy but…

Poet

Isaac Rosenberg

B. 1890 D. 1918

5 poems available

Isaac Rosenberg was born in Bristol in 1890, the son of Russian immigrants; his father was a learned Jew who scraped a living as a pedlar and market trader. In 1897 the family moved to Whitechapel in London’s East End. Isaacs’s…

Poet

Alexander Pope

B. 1688 D. 1744

3 poems available

Pope was born into a Catholic family in 1688, the year of The Glorious Revolution, when Catholics could not live in London – the centre of literary life – or attend university. At the age of twelve he contracted a…

Poet

2 poems available

John Wilmot was born in 1647, the son of Henry Wilmot, a celebrated Royalist who had led the cavalry at the Battle of Edgehill. Henry helped the young Prince Charles escape to France after the disastrous Royalist defeat at the…

Poet

A E Housman

B. 1859 D. 1936

3 poems available

Alfred Edward Housman, the eldest son of a Bromsgrove solicitor, was born in 1859. He attended Bromsgrove School as a dayboy, but soon after he started there his mother fell ill and his father sank into helpless despondency; as the…

Poet

William Shakespeare

B. 1564 D. 1616

22 poems available

Little is known about Shakespeare’s life. Existing records give tantalising glimpses: he was born in 1564, the eldest son of an illiterate but locally prominent Stratford glover, married (at eighteen) the twenty-six-year-old Anne Hathaway, had three children of whom one,…

Poet

Matthew Arnold

B. 1822 D. 1888

3 poems available

Matthew Arnold was born in 1822, the son of the celebrated headmaster of Rugby, Thomas Arnold. Matthew attended Balliol College, Oxford and was a close friend of an older fellow Rugbeian, the poet Arthur Hugh Clough. In 1847 Arnold met and…

Poet

Anna Laetitia Barbauld

B. 1743 D. 1825

2 poems available

Anna Barbauld (nee Aikin) was born in 1743, daughter of a nonconformist minister and schoolmaster, who taught her to read English before she was three and to master French, Italian, Latin and Greek while still a child. Her book of…

Poet

Anne Bradstreet

B. 1612 D. 1672

4 poems available

Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 in England. In 1630 she emigrated to Massachusetts, with her father Thomas Dudley and her husband Simon Bradstreet. They sailed as members of the expedition led by John Winthrop, eventually the first governor of…

Poet

Christopher Marlowe

B. 1564 D. 1593

3 poems available

Marlowe is believed to have written all his poems and translations as a young man studying at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare, and was the son of a shoemaker. Ovid’s elegies…

Poet

Andrew Marvell

B. 1621 D. 1678

4 poems available

Andrew Marvell was born near Kingston Upon Hull in 1621, the son of a priest. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, but left his studies early when his father was drowned in a boating accident on the Humber. He travelled abroad for…

Poet

2 poems available

Mary Pierrepont was born in 1689, the first child of the Earl of Kingston. Her mother died in 1694 and Mary was groomed to become hostess and housekeeper for her father, then a Whig MP. Her tasks included presiding over his…

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