Dictionary of Literary Biography: Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, Vol. 121 Book

The poets profiled in this volume lived and wrote during one of the most volatile and decisive periods of religious, social, and political change in English history. This was the period of the Pilgrims' exodus to Amsterdam and Plymouth, the English Civil Wars, and the start of the Thirty Year War. This was also the era in which the monarch, Charles I, who had been said to rule by 'divine' right, was legally executed. The literary careers of the 17th-century nondramatic poets offer examples of the change and the radical disruption of the nation. 28 entries include: William Basse, Sir John Beaumont, John Donne, Phineas Fletcher, John Hoskyns, Ben Jonson, Samuel Rowlands, John Taylor, Aurelian Townshend, Sir Henry Wotton and Lady Mary Wroth.