The Cavalier poets were a loose group of English gentleman-poets who wrote at and around the court of Charles I in the 1620s to 1640s, taking their name from the Royalist Cavaliers who supported the king during the English Civil War. Writing polished, witty lyric poetry celebrating love, loyalty, leisure and the pleasures of the moment, in a style prizing grace and directness over elaborate metaphysical conceit, the group's leading figures included Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling and Thomas Carew, who took Ben Jonson's classical restraint as their principal model. Their carpe-diem lyricism and courtly ease stand in contrast to the intellectual difficulty of the contemporary metaphysical poets, and the movement effectively ended with the Civil War and the execution of Charles I, after which many Cavalier poets were exiled, imprisoned or fell silent.
Facts
Partially Attested
Period, To (Year)Source brackets the school to the English Civil War period (1642-1651) in its own lead sentence rather than giving a separate literary end date. Period, From (Year) Connections
Sources
1. Cavalier Poets (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)body text on the genre's recognition
Cavalier poetry began to be recognized as its own genre with the beginning of the English Civil War in 1642 when men began to write in defense of the crown.
lead paragraph
The cavalier poets was a school of English poets of the 17th century, that came from the classes that supported King Charles I during the English Civil War (1642-1651).
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