UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 31, Page 2
May 14, 1992
Poet to kings; Professors collaborate on 17th-century 'literary Mozart'

     A project directed by Thomas Calhoun, professor of English, and
involving J. Robert King, professor emeritus of music, and scholars in
Virginia, Texas, Canada and England, has received a $177,000 research
award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
     The award will support research on the latter volumes in a
six-volume set of works by the 17th-century lyric poet, essayist,
satirist and playwright, Abraham Cowley (1618-1667). Cowley was an
important literary figure, not only for his own works, but for his
influence on English literature and poetry from his own time to the
present.
     Calhoun is chief editor of the series, which is being published
by the University of Delaware/Associated University Presses. The first
volume, already published, containing Cowley's early works, political
satires and the historical epic, Civil War, received the "Outstanding
Academic Book" award from Choice-the review publication of the
Association of College and Research Libraries.
     In addition, texts and translations of Cowley's Latin poety were
recently given a Columbia University Translation Center award.
     Volume two, which includes The Mistress, a series of love poems
and songs based on Cowley's poems, is scheduled for publication this
year.
     Cowley was a precocious child, a kind of literary Mozart, Calhoun
said, who attended Westminster School in London and Cambridge
University. Revered as the leading poet of his day, he served in the
court of Charles I, moving to the Louvre in Paris in exile during the
English Civil War when Cromwell was in power.
     As Queen Henrietta Maria's private secretary, writing her
correspondence in code, he was privy to the politics and intrigues of
the court. He returned to England during the Restoration, but during
the latter part of his life, left the court of Charles II to retire to
the English countryside and write about the pleasures of pastoral
life.
     According to Calhoun, Cowley was a prolific writer who
contributed to the development of literary forms while reflecting the
styles and themes of British culture in the 17th century. Cowley's
lyric love poems in The Mistress made the court-sonnet accessible to a
wide, general audience. His Pindaric odes, modeled after those of the
Greek poet, helped establish a form of free verse in English
literature.
     He has influenced writers from John Milton, whose Paradise Lost
was modeled in part after Cowley's biblical epic, Davideis, to
Coleridge, who considered Cowley's essays models of prose, to
contemporary writers such as Malcom Lowry and John Cheever, Calhoun
said.
     He also introduced words and phrases to the English language,
such as "flame," for a loved one (i.e. "my old flame..."); romance,
meaning a type of novel; and the phrase, "being on the horns of a
dilemma."
     Cowley's poems were lyrical in the true sense of the word in that
many of his works were set to music by composers, Calhoun said. As a
result, his poems became the "popular songs" of his time and were
widely known.
     King serves as music editor of the project. He has researched the
compositions inspired by Cowley's lyrics. For example, King said,
"Honour" and other poems from The Mistress inspired compositions by
Italian composer Pietro Reggio and by William King. Henry Purcell and
John Blow also set Cowley's poetry to music.
     There are 60 songs included in the second volume. King has
described, collated and annotated the musical settings of Cowley's
poetry. Copy texts of the songs appear in various forms. Some are
manuscript. Others are printed from wood block or engraved plates, and
some are set in moveable type. King has transcribed the music so that
it can be understood by modern musicologists and musicians for
performance. Errors in the copy texts are amended and bass figures for
accompaniment are provided. The songs were traditionally accompanied
by the lute or harpsichord, sometimes in combination with viols. Some
of the settings are orchestrated for multiple voices and viols. .
     Research for the works has taken the editors to most of the main
archival collections on both sides of the Atlantic, from the
Huntington Library and Art Gallery in Los Angeles and the Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington to Oxford, Cambridge and the British
Library in England.
     Although other editions of Cowley's works have been printed in
past centuries, many of these contain errors and are incomplete,
according to Calhoun. There has been a need for a complete, modern
critical version of his works.
     Because of the breadth of his experience and involvement in
17th- century England, and his extensive writings, Cowley and his
works should be of interest not only to students of English
literature, but to historians, musicians and others studying that
period, Calhoun said.
     Other scholars involved in the project include Dan Kinney,
University of Virginia; Ernest Sullivan, Texas Technical University;
Cedric Brown, University of Reading; Sarah Machon and Alex Lindsay,
Cambridge University; and Allan Pritchard, University of Toronto.
     -Sue Swyers Moncure