Poetry
Davies wrote poetry in numerous forms, but is best known for his epigrammes and sonnets. In 1599 he published Nosce Teipsum (Know thyself) and Hymnes of Astraea. Queen Elizabeth became an admirer of Davies' work, and these poems contain acrostics that spell out the phrase Elisabetha Regina.
Davies is a great example of "new" poetry in the 1590s. This was a poetry characterized by a burning delight in intellectual analysis and a pure passion for knowledge. Davies' works are very well represented in Elizabethan anthologies. The last complete edition of his poems appeared in 1876 and is long out of print.
His most famous poem, Nosce Teipsum, was reprinted numerous times, and was one of the first English poems to use the decasyllabic quatrain instead of the heroic couplet for a poem of its scope. It won him the favor of James I, by which he won promotion in Ireland. The poem summarizes the main issues in religious thought in the Elizabethan Era, addressing the relation of body to soul, and of Materialism to Idealism. A.H. Bullen described it as being "singularly readable for such a subject: highly accomplished verse, no Elizabethan quaintness, bothe subtle and terse".
A.H. Bullen also described Davies' Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing as "brilliant and graceful". This poem, formed in tiny octavos, reveals a typical Elizabethan pleasure: contemplating and trying to understand the relationship between the natural order and human activity.
Much historical knowledge can be gained from the reading of Davies' poetry. Queen Elizabeth's anger at Bishop Fletcher's second marriage, to a beautiful young woman, becomes more understandable after taking into account her loose character explained in Davies' writings. Another epigram speaks of a practice of "masochism" at the time. This is where sexual gratification comes from physical pain and suffering, perhaps being whipped by women.
Read more about this topic: John Davies (poet)
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“The man who invented Eskimo Pie made a million dollars, so one is told, but E.E. Cummings, whose verse has been appearing off and on for three years now, and whose experiments should not be more appalling to those interested in poetry than the experiment of surrounding ice-cream with a layer of chocolate was to those interested in soda fountains, has hardly made a dent in the doughy minds of our so-called poetry lovers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No good poetry is ever written in a manner twenty years old, for to write in such a manner shows conclusively that the writer thinks from books, convention and cliché, not from real life.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)