Thomas Carew: The Cavalier Poet Who Served Kings and Penned Sensuous Verse

 

• Introduction to Thomas Carew

• Birth and Family Background (1595)

• Father: Sir Matthew Carew, Master in Chancery

• Mother: Alice Rivers

• Education at Merton College, Oxford

• Studies at the Middle Temple

• Early Diplomatic Career: Venice and the Hague

• Dismissal for Levity and Slander (1616)

• Service to Edward Herbert in France (1619-1624)

• Court Appointment and the Candle Story

• Server to King Charles I (1630)

• Friendships: Suckling, Jonson, and Hyde

• The Influence of John Donne

• Coelum Britanicum: The Masque at Whitehall (1633)

• Publication and the Inigo Jones Connection

• The Celia Poems: Love and Sensuality

• "A Rapture": Carew's Most Celebrated Poem

• The Elegy on John Donne: Masterpiece of Criticism

• Poetic Style and Literary Legacy

• The Mystery of His Final Years

• Death and the Question of Remorse

• Publication of Poems (1640)

• Manuscript Tradition and Modern Editions

• Legacy in English Literature

• Frequently Asked Questions

Introduction to Thomas Carew

Thomas Carew (pronounced "Carey") (1595 22 March 1640) was an English poet, among the "Cavalier" group of Caroline poets -1. His life unfolded in the glittering but treacherous world of the early Stuart court, where wit, charm, and poetic skill could open doors to royal favor. As the first of the Cavalier songwriters, Carew perfected a lyric style that combined the metaphysical wit of John Donne with the classical elegance of Ben Jonson, creating poems of sensuous beauty that continue to captivate readers four centuries later.

Birth and Family Background (1595)

Thomas Carew was probably the third of the eleven children of his parents, and was born in West Wickham in Kent, in the early part of 1595; he was thirteen years old in June 1608, when he matriculated at Merton College, Oxford -1. Some sources place his birth in 1594, but the consensus favors 1595 -2.

Father: Sir Matthew Carew, Master in Chancery

He was the son of Sir Matthew Carew, master in chancery, and his wife Alice, daughter of Sir John Rivers, Lord Mayor of the City of London and widow of Ingpen -1. Sir Matthew was a lawyer of considerable distinction, having been a Master in Chancery since 1576. He was knighted by James I in 1603 -7. The family took up residence in London about 1598, placing young Thomas at the heart of English political and cultural life from an early age.

Mother: Alice Rivers

Alice Rivers came from a prominent London family. Her father, Sir John Rivers, had served as Lord Mayor of London, giving the Carew family connections to both the legal establishment and the commercial elite of the capital.

Education at Merton College, Oxford

Carew matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, in June 1608 at the age of thirteen. He took his degree of B.A. early in 1611 -1. Oxford in the early 17th century was a center of Renaissance learning, and Merton had a distinguished intellectual tradition.

Studies at the Middle Temple

After Oxford, Carew proceeded to study at the Middle Temple, one of the Inns of Court where young gentlemen prepared for careers in law and public service -1. Two years later his father complained to Sir Dudley Carleton that he was not doing well -1.

Early Diplomatic Career: Venice and the Hague

He was therefore sent to Italy as a member of Sir Dudley's household and, when the ambassador returned from Venice, he seems to have kept Thomas Carew with him, for he was working as secretary to Carleton, at the Hague, early in 1616 -1. This diplomatic experience exposed him to European culture and politics, broadening his intellectual horizons.

Dismissal for Levity and Slander (1616)

However, he was dismissed in the autumn of that year for levity and slander; he had great difficulty in finding another job -1. This early setback was likely due to written indiscretions bearing on Carleton's character -7. For the next two years, Carew struggled to find employment, repeatedly attending court and seeking patronage from noblemen.

Service to Edward Herbert in France (1619-1624)

In August 1618 his father died and Carew entered the service of Edward Herbert, Baron Herbert of Cherbury, in whose train he travelled to France in March 1619, and it is believed that he remained with Herbert until his return to England, at the close of his diplomatic missions, in April 1624 -1. During this period, he may have met the Italian poet Giambattista Marino, whose libertine spirit and brilliant wit would influence his own poetry -2.

Court Appointment and the Candle Story

Carew "followed the court before he was of it," not receiving the definite commitment of the Chamber until 1628 -1. According to a probably apocryphal story, while Carew held this office he displayed his tact and presence of mind by stumbling and extinguishing the candle he was holding to light Charles I into the queen's chamber, because he saw that Lord St Albans had his arm round her majesty's neck. The king suspected nothing, and the queen heaped favours on the poet -1.

Server to King Charles I (1630)

Probably in 1630 Carew was made "server" or taster-in-ordinary to the king -1. This position, a Sewer in Ordinary, was a household office responsible for the royal dining arrangements -7. It gave Carew regular access to the king and queen and confirmed his position within the court.

Friendships: Suckling, Jonson, and Hyde

To this period may be attributed his close friendships with Sir John Suckling, Ben Jonson and Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon; the latter described Carew as "a person of pleasant and facetious wit" -1. Suckling was another Cavalier poet, Jonson the dominant literary figure of the age, and Hyde a future statesman and historian. This circle represented the intellectual elite of Caroline England.

The Influence of John Donne

John Donne, whose celebrity as a court-preacher lasted until his death in 1631, exercised a powerful influence over the genius of Carew -1. Carew's famous elegy on Donne praises him as the king of "the universal monarchy of wit," a phrase that captures both Donne's dominance and Carew's profound admiration -2. This poem is considered the outstanding piece of poetic criticism of the age -2.

Coelum Britanicum: The Masque at Whitehall (1633)

In February 1633 a masque by the latter, Coelum Britanicum, was acted in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, and was printed in 1634 -1. The masque was performed by the king and his gentlemen, with music composed by Henry Lawes, who set several of Carew's songs to music -2. The designer for the production was Inigo Jones, the greatest architect of the age, whose name appears on the internal title page -3. This collaboration united three of the most important artists of the Caroline era.

Publication and the Inigo Jones Connection

The masque was published in 1634 by Thomas Walkley, with the imprint "London. Printed by Thomas Walkley. 1640." -3 The Folger Library holds a copy of the 1634 edition, which includes a manuscript contents list on the inside front cover -5.

The Celia Poems: Love and Sensuality

Many of Carew's songs and love poems are addressed to the still-unidentified "Celia," a woman who was evidently Carew's lover for years. The poems to Celia treat the urgency of courtship, making much of the carpe diem theme. Others commend Celia through simile, conceit, and cliché -1.

"A Rapture": Carew's Most Celebrated Poem

The longest of Carew's poems, "A Rapture," would be more widely appreciated if the rich flow of its imagination were restrained by greater reticence of taste -1. The poem graphically documents a sexual encounter through analogy, euphemism, and paradox -1. It represents the sensuous extreme of Cavalier poetry and has been scrutinized as both biography and fantasy -1.

The Elegy on John Donne: Masterpiece of Criticism

His elegy on John Donne has been praised as both a masterpiece of criticism and a remarkably perceptive analysis of the metaphysical qualities of Donne's literary work -1. It remains one of the most important critical statements of the 17th century.

Poetic Style and Literary Legacy

Carew's poems are sensuous lyrics. They open to us, in his own phrase, "a mine of rich and pregnant fancy." His metrical style was influenced by Jonson and his imagery by Donne, for whom he had an almost servile admiration -1. He was a meticulous workman, and his own verses addressed to Ben Jonson show that he was proud to share Jonson's creed of painstaking perfection -2.

Carew had a lucidity and directness of lyrical utterance unknown to Donne. It is perhaps his greatest distinction that he is the earliest of the Cavalier song-writers by profession -1.

The Mystery of His Final Years

The close of Carew's life is absolutely obscure -1. It was long supposed that he died in 1639, and this has been thought to be confirmed by the fact that the first edition of his Poems, published in 1640, seems to have a posthumous character but Clarendon tells us that "after fifty years of life spent with less severity and exactness than it ought to have been, he died with the greatest remorse for that licence". If Carew was more than fifty years of age, he must have died during or after 1645, and in fact there were final additions made to his Poems in the third edition of 1651 -1.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography now confirms that he was buried at St Dunstan's-in-the-West, London, on 23 March 1640 -7.

Death and the Question of Remorse

Izaak Walton tells us that Carew in his last illness, being afflicted with the horrors, sent in great haste to "the ever-memorable" John Hales (1584 1656); Hales "told him he should have his prayers, but would by no means give him then either the sacrament or absolution" -1.

He is said to have died with expressions of remorse for a life of libertinism -2.

Publication of Poems (1640)

The first edition of Poems. By Thomas Carew, Esquire was published in 1640 by Thomas Walkley, printed by I.D. -3. The collection includes lyrics, songs, pastorals, poetic dialogues, elegies, addresses, and occasional poems. Most of the pieces are fairly short the longest, "A Rapture," is 166 lines, and well over half are under 50 lines -1.

The Princeton University Library holds a copy of this first edition, which has several interesting features: errors in signature marks and pagination, and a cancel for leaf G7 -3.

Manuscript Tradition and Modern Editions

Carew's poems circulated widely in manuscript before their publication. The Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts documents numerous 17th-century manuscript copies, including the important Gower manuscript, which contains Carew's autograph corrections and revisions -6.

The definitive modern edition is The Poems of Thomas Carew, with His Masque "Coelum Britannicum," edited by Rhodes Dunlap (1949) -2.

Legacy in English Literature

Carew has long been recognized as a notable figure in English literary history. F. R. Leavis wrote in 1936: "Carew, it seems to me, has claims to more distinction than he is commonly accorded; more than he is accorded by the bracket that, in common acceptance, links him with Lovelace and Suckling" -1.

By the end of the twentieth century, Carew has been recognized as an important poet representative of his time and a master lyricist. According to Edmund Gosse, "Carew's poems, at their best, are brilliant lyrics of the purely sensuous order" -1.

American author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau used Thomas Carew's poem "The Pretensions of Poverty" as a "complemental verse" to conclude the "Economy" chapter in his 1854 book Walden -1.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: When and where was Thomas Carew born?

A: He was born in early 1595, probably in West Wickham, Kent -1.

Q: Who were Thomas Carew's parents?

A: Sir Matthew Carew, Master in Chancery, and Alice Rivers, daughter of Sir John Rivers, Lord Mayor of London -1.

Q: Where was Thomas Carew educated?

A: At Merton College, Oxford, and the Middle Temple, London -1.

Q: What was Carew's role at the court of Charles I?

A: He was appointed Sewer in Ordinary (server or taster-in-ordinary) to the king in 1630 -1.

Q: What is Carew's most famous poem?

A: "A Rapture" is his longest and most celebrated work, though his elegy on John Donne is also highly regarded -1.

Q: When did Thomas Carew die?

A: He was buried on 23 March 1640, though the exact date of death is uncertain -1.

Q: Where was Thomas Carew buried?

A: At St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, London -7.

Thomas Carew's life and work embody the paradoxes of the Caroline age: the pursuit of pleasure shadowed by religious guilt, the celebration of the senses tempered by awareness of mortality, the glitter of the court contrasted with the solitude of the poet's study. His poems, circulated in manuscript during his lifetime and published posthumously, represent the highest achievement of the Cavalier lyric tradition.

Whether writing with Donne's metaphysical complexity or Jonson's classical elegance, Carew brought to his verse a distinctive voice: sensuous, witty, and unfailingly musical. His "Celia" poems capture the urgency of courtship, his "Rapture" celebrates physical love with unprecedented frankness, and his elegy on Donne offers one of the most perceptive critical assessments of the age.

Four centuries after his birth, Carew's poems continue to reward readers with their "rich and pregnant fancy." In the words of Edmund Gosse, they remain "brilliant lyrics of the purely sensuous order" testaments to a poet who lived and loved with intensity, and transformed that experience into art.

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