본문 바로가기
  • Home
Basic Search

“Our Halcyon Days”: Caroline Pacifism and the Works of Thomas Carew

KIM, YOUN KYUNG 1

1대구대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Though in the past many literary critics have criticized Caroline literature as idle gentlemen’s flippant entertainment, or worse, shameless flattery, mostly referring to historical studies that criticizes Charles I’s dysfunctional reign, some recent historiographies describe the period as culturally rich and economically stable. When we reconsider the period, Cavalier poetry, and in particular, Thomas Carew’s works can be reevaluated aga in. This article examines two representative pieces of Carew’s political literature in the 1630s, “In Answer of an Elegiacall Letter Upon the death of the King of Sweden from Aurelian Townshend” and Coelum Britannicum, and argues that Carew’s vindication of Caroline pacifism in these works shows the poet’s consistent aesthetic vision and his conviction in the superiority of England over Europe in the period. In the elegy, being asked to mourn the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphs, the great Protestant hero who died in 1632, Carew reassesses the king’s military achievements, comparing them with peaceful lives and entertainments at the English court. After pointing out that blind glorification of Adolphs’ numerous battles misses the dismal state of Europe that was left after his death, Carew carefully distinguishes the state of England from that of Europe. Additionally, the poet proposes a morally superior, aesthetically attractive, and practically less disastrous world of pastoral that Caroline literature and culture frequently created, and he also persuades his addressees, including Townshend, to enjoy the peaceful state of their own country. Utilizing effectively various literary and theatrical conventions of masque, a representative genre of court entertainments, and particularly using two complementary voices of Momus and Mercury, in Coelum Britannicum Carew positions an idealized version of Caroline England as the climatic point in historical and cultural progress. While as a court poet Carew does not neglect to praise the royal couple in this piece, his vision of a morally reformed and aesthetically refined world at the end of the masque makes this work as a masterpiece of the genre and testifies Carew’s artistic maneuver.

Statistics

  • 219 Viewed
  • 61 Downloaded

Tools

Issue List

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Basic Search Advanced Search