Coterie Poems (c. 1610 - 1660)

1. John Donne writes in 1624 that Life “is like a Sentence, so much as may be uttered in a breathing: and such a difference as is in Styles, is in our lives, contracted and dilated. And as in some Styles, there are open Parentheses, Sentences within Sentences; so there are lives, within our lives.” Coterie Poems (c. 1610 - 1660)

2. John Donne (1572 - 1631) • accepted to legal school in 1591 • travels to Italy and Spain in 1590s • spends much of inheritance on women and literature • marries Anne More in 1601 against wishes of her father; briefly stays in prison but released when union proven valid, although it ruins his aspirations to be diplomat • Anne bears him 12 children in 16 years of marriage; dies in 1617; he never remarries • relies on rich friends in 1610s; receives Doctor of Divinity degree in 1618 from Cambridge; ordained Dean of St. Paul’s in 1621 (well-paying position) Portrait (c. 1595, artist unknown)

3. Andrew Marvell (1621- 1678) • receives BA at Cambridge; travels through Europe in 1640s during English Civil Wars • works as tutor to notable Puritans in 1650s; appointed to Parliament in 1659; publishes anonymous prose satires about monarchists after 1660 Restoration • political views ambiguous; flirted with Catholicism while young; not a Puritan although works for them; described while on trip to France in 1650s as “a notable English Italo-Machiavellian” • poems found by housekeeper Mary Palmer and published posthumously in 1681 Portrait (c. 1655, artist unknown)

4. Some history of the flea • fleas are wingless; can spread plague (e.g., Bubonic [swelling of lymph nodes]; also pneumonic, septicemic) • bacterium discovered 1894 during epidemic in China • big European plagues are Black Death of c. 1348 and London Plague of 1665 “…cloistered in these living walls of jet.” (“Flea,” l. 15) “…hast thou since / Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?” (“Flea,” ll. 19-20)

5. Flea circus (c. 1830s) • fleas can pull items 700x their own weight; strong hind legs; good jumpers • flea circuses popular by 19th cent. (e.g., fleas pulling tiny chariots, walking a tightrope, playing music in miniature orchestras) Newer example 2 (Tightrope flea) Victorian Flea Circus, cartoon Newer example 1 (Homer’s Iliad flea)

6. History of gardens • medieval knot gardens still prevalent during Renaissance (formally designed; consist of squarish frames in which aromatic plants and culinary herbs grown) • French parterre (“on the ground,” same level) gardens developed by Claude Mollet in early 17th cent.; more elaborate and contain hedges, dominate properties of aristocracy for most of later 17th and much of 18th cent. • English landscape garden emerges in 1720s and slowly displaces elaborate, geometrical, parterre structure by later 18th cent. • parterre and knot gardens repopularized in later 19th cent. during Victorian Age Stowe Landscape Park, Buckinghamshire Left Side of Symmetrical Parterre, Waddesdon Manor Knot Garden, Bristol

7. Older possibilities • Garden of Eden; Biblical motifs • Epicurus’ garden; in which he lectured to students Agricultural University of Athens; possible location of Epicurus’ garden Garden of Eden, by Jacob de Backer (c. late 16th cent.)