Background
He was born circa 1612 in London. His father, a stern Puritan who hated the Church of Rome as much as he did worldly pleasures-his son was to share the latter of his prejudices but not the former-was preacher at the Temple Church.
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"The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw - Volume II" from Richard Crashaw. English poet, styled "the divine" and known as one of the central figures associated with the Metaphysical poets in 17th Century (1613-1649).
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(2 works of Richard Crashaw English poet (1613-1649) This...)
2 works of Richard Crashaw English poet (1613-1649) This ebook presents a collection of 2 works of Richard Crashaw. A dynamic table of contents allows you to jump directly to the work selected. Table of Contents: The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw - Volume I The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw - Volume II
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"The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw - Volume I" from Richard Crashaw. English poet, styled "the divine" and known as one of the central figures associated with the Metaphysical poets in 17th Century (1613-1649).
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He was born circa 1612 in London. His father, a stern Puritan who hated the Church of Rome as much as he did worldly pleasures-his son was to share the latter of his prejudices but not the former-was preacher at the Temple Church.
Crashaw was educated at the Charterhouse, where he received a rigorous classical education under the tutelage of a royalist master.
He had already indicated his poetic talent and religious sensibility in poems in Latin and Greek before he entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1631.
At the university Crashaw found himself in the matrix of an extraordinary number of the period's best poets: John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Sir John Suckling, Abraham Cowley, and John Milton, to name some of the most important.
His own college was High Church in ritual and spiritual allegiance.
In 1634 Crashaw received a bachelor of arts degree, and in 1635 he was elected a fellow of Peterhouse, which was strongly influenced by the conservative, High Church archbishop William Laud.
For eight years, beginning in 1636, Crashaw was appointed as a fellow of Peterhouse, the oldest constituent college at the University of Cambridge. In 1638 Crashaw took holy orders in the Church of England, and was installed as curate of the Church of St Mary the Less, Cambridge. This church, known affectionately as "Little St Mary's", is adjacent to Peterhouse and had served as the college's chapel until the opening of a new chapel within the college in 1632. Peterhouse's master, John Cosin, and many of the college's fellows, adhered toward Laudianism and embraced the Anglican faith's catholic heritage.
According to an early Crashaw biographer, David Lloyd, Crashaw attracted Christians who came to his services eager to hear his sermons, "that ravished more like Poems, than both the Poet and Saint. .. scattering not so much Sentences as Extasies". Because of the tensions between Laudian adherents and their Puritan detractors, the Puritans often sent people to attend church services in order to identify and gather evidence of "superstitious" or "Popish" idolatry. In 1641, Crashaw would be cited for Mariolatry (excessive devotion to the Virgin Mary) and for his superstitious practices of "diverse bowings, cringeings" and incensing before the altar".
With the advance of Cromwell's forces on Cambridge, Crashaw was forced to resign from his fellowship at Peterhouse. He and five of his colleagues were ousted because of their refusal to sign the Solemn League and Covenant. This began his exile from "the contentfull little kingdom" at Peterhouse that he cherished. Shortly after Crashaw's departure from the city, Little St Mary's was ransacked on 29 and 30 December 1643 by William Dowsing, an iconoclast who was ordered by Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester, a parliamentary commander during the Civil War, to rid Anglican churches in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire of any ornaments or images connected to Roman Catholic "superstitions" or "popery". Dowsing faithfully kept a journal of his destructive efforts at over 250 churches, recording that at Little St Mary's "we brake downe 60 superstitious pictures, some popes, and crucifixes, and God the Father sitting in a chayer, and holding a globe in his hand".
Crashaw's poetry took on decidedly catholic imagery, especially in his poems written about of Spanish mystic St Teresa of Avila. Teresa's writings were unknown in England and unavailable in English. However, Crashaw had been exposed to her work, and the three poems he wrote in her honor—"A Hymn to Sainte Teresa, " "An Apologie for the fore-going Hymne, " and "The Flaming Heart"—are, arguably, his most sublime works. Crashaw began writing poems influenced by the George Herbert's collection The Temple—an influence likely derived from Herbert's connection to Nicholas Ferrar. Several of these poems Crashaw later collected in a series titled Steps to the Temple and The Delights of the Muses by an anonymous friend and published in one volume in 1646. This collection included Crashaw's translation of Giambattista Marini's Sospetto d'Herode. In his preface, the collection's anonymous editor described the poems as having the potential to induce a considerable effect on the reader—it would "lift thee Reader, some yards above the ground. "
(2 works of Richard Crashaw English poet (1613-1649) This...)
("The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw - Volume II" from ...)
("The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw - Volume I" from R...)
The English poet Richard Crashaw was Roman Catholic in sensibility and ultimately in allegiance.
Richard was a fellow of Peterhouse.
Richard's father, William Crashaw, was born in or near Handsworth, a village near Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, and came from a prosperous family. It is thought that Crashaw's mother, his father's first wife, died during her son's infancy.
William's death in 1626 rendered Richard an orphan when he was 13 or 14 years old. However, England's attorney general, Sir Henry Yelverton and Sir Ranulph Crewe, a prominent judge, friends and colleagues of his late father through the Inner Temple, were appointed as the young orphan's guardians.