Biographical Overview & Key Facts

Subject:

Abraham Cowley

Role / Field:

Leading 17th-century English poet and essayist, celebrated for his wit and verse.

Born:

1618

Died:

1667-07-28

Century / Era:

1618s Historical Era

Database Source:

2Day Chrono-Wiki & Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0

Origins & Early Life

Abraham Cowley (; 1618 – 28 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his Works published between 1668 and 1721. Cowley's father, a wealthy Londoner, who died shortly before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of The Faerie Queene.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

This became the favourite reading of her son, and he had read it twice before he was sent to school. As early as 1628, when he was only ten years old, he composed his Tragicall Historie of Piramus and Thisbe, an epic romance written in a six-line stanza, a style of his own invention. It has been considered to be a most astonishing feat of imaginative precocity; it is marked by no great faults of immaturity, and possesses constructive merits of a very high order. Two years later, Cowley wrote another and still more ambitious poem, Constantia and Philetus; around this time he was sent to Westminster School. At Westminster he displayed extraordinary mental precocity and versatility, writing when he was just thirteen...

Enduring Legacy & Impact

The historical impact and works continue to influence the modern world.

Contemporary Figures & Related Historical Timelines

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• Johann Bernoulli — Contemporary (Born in 1667) (1667): Swiss mathematician known for calculus and educating Leonhard Euler.
• Abraham Pais — Shared historical date (07-28 · Died) (2000): Pioneering physicist and acclaimed science historian of modern physics.
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• Walter Raleigh — Historical peer (Died in 1618) (1618): English statesman, explorer, and writer of the Elizabethan era.
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Frequently Asked Questions about Abraham Cowley