He was imprisoned briefly in 1648 for supporting the Royalists during the time of Oliver Cromwell. He was best known for his poems To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars.
His most quoted excerpt is from the beginning of the last stanza of To Althea, From Prison
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage
External Link
the e-texts of Richard Lovelace's The Lucasta Poems (http://www.abacci.com/books/book.asp?bookID=1217)
Text of Richard Lovelace's poems at Project Gutenberg The Lucasta Poems by Richard Lovelace (http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/703)
He belonged to an influential Kentish family, and was the eldest son of Sir William Lovelace, of Woolwich, where he was born in 1618.
In 1642, he was chosen by the cavalier party in Kent to present to the House of Commons the so-called Kentish petition, which asked for “a restoration of the bishops, liturgy and common prayer”; the petition was burnt by the common hangman and, for some seven weeks, Lovelace was a prisoner in the Gatehouse, Westminster.
Judged by the bulk of his poems, Lovelace has more in common with Habington than with the typical cavalier lyrists, Suckling and Carew; and, although his addresses entitled The Grasshopper and The Snail faintly recall the Anacreontic Ode to the Cicada, he cannot well be called a neo-classic or a follower of Jonson.
Feeds |
Contact