Robert Herrick

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Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick (born August 24, 1591 in London ; buried October 15, 1674 in Dean Prior , Devon ) was an English poet .

One of his most famous poems is To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time . This poem plays a key role in the film The Dead Poets Club by introducing the film motto of " Carpe diem ".

life and work

Hesperides , title page of the first printing in 1648

After an apprenticeship as a goldsmith with his uncle in the City of London , Herrick attended Cambridge University from 1613 to 1617 . He then stayed in London as a poet for the Tribe of Ben , a retinue of the famous playwright Ben Jonson . He socialized with writers and went to taverns to circulate his manuscript poems among like-minded people. In 1623 he was given church orders regardless of his previous way of life. After he had accompanied the Duke of Buckingham as a ship chaplain in 1627 to support the Huguenots in the siege of La Rochelle , Herrick became Vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire in 1629 . He lost this benefice as a royalist under the rule of the Puritans , but received his parish in Devonshire back after the Restoration in 1660 and kept it until his death.

After losing his position as vicar, Herrick returned temporarily to London and published his few sacred verses, the Noble Numbers , as well as his numerous secular poems under the title Hesperides in 1648 . The title of the collection of poems refers to the Hesperides and, from Herrick's perspective as a Christian Epicurean, describes an island of the blessed, which the poet already declared in his day to be his area of ​​wise enjoyment of life.

Their “golden fruits” show themselves as his poetic harvest; The approximately 1300 mostly shorter poems in the collection show a wide range of different shapes and motifs; In addition to poems that are influenced by the erotic elegy , Horace's ode art and classical epigrammatics , there are also typically English scenes of urban and rural sociability or being in love.

In his poetry, however, Herrick not only shows the glamor and the sensual allure of earthly happiness and enjoyment of life, but also proves himself to be a moralist. In poems such as To the Virgins or To Daffodils, the carpe diem theme is unfolded on the dark background of a heightened awareness of this worldly transience; the cheerful art that Herrick has designed as a counter-world to the dark epoch of the civil war is tinged with melancholy. As a follower of Ben Jonson , his work also reflects an aristocratic social order that was threatened with extinction at that time.

Works

  • 1648 Hesperides; or, the Works Both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, Esq.

Expenses (selection)

  • The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick . Edited by LC Martin. Oxford University Press 1956 (new edition 2013).
  • The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick . Edited by JM Patrick. New York 1963.
  • The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick . Edited by TSG Cain and Ruth Connolly. Oxford University Press 2013.

literature

Web links

Commons : Robert Herrick  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Robert Herrick  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Werner von Koppenfels : Herrick, Robert . In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning, Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, pp. 270f. See also Robert Herrick . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  2. ↑ Cf. Werner von Koppenfels : Herrick, Robert . In: Metzler Lexicon of English-Speaking Authors . 631 portraits - from the beginning to the present. Edited by Eberhard Kreutzer and Ansgar Nünning, Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, pp. 270f. See also Robert Herrick . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved June 7, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Herrick, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English poet
DATE OF BIRTH August 1591
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH buried October 15, 1674
Place of death Dean Prior , Devon