Infant Poets and Child Players: The Literary Performance of Childhood in Caroline England

Abstract

In an essay, ‘Of Myself,’ published posthumously in 1668, the poet Abraham Cowley reflects on his early development as a writer. Attempting to pin down the origin of his poetic vocation, he writes: I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such Chimes of Verse, as have never since left ringing there: For I remember when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my Mothers parlour (I know not by what accident, for she her self never in her life read any Book but of Devotion) but there was wont to lie Spencers VVorks [ sic ]; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the Stories of the Knights, and Giants, and Monsters, and brave Houses, which I found every where there: (Though my understanding had little to do with all this) and by degrees with the tinckling [ sic ] of the Rhyme and Dance of the Numbers, so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a Poet as irremediably as a Child is made an Eunuch. (Cowley, Works S4v) Although other early modern writers trace their early reading in a similar fashion, Cowley is unusual — although not unique — in having presented in print the early products of his fascination with poetry. His first collection of verse, Poeticall Blossomes , was published in 1633 when he was 15, and according to his later testimony it contained poems written when he was 10 and 12 ( Poeticall Blossomes. The Second Edition A4r). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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