From: "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]>
> Marvell was also an anti-Cromwellian. The Horatian Ode marks an
ambivalent
> turning-point in his politics.
Ambivalent, yes, but a point +from which+ he turned, to the much more
pro-Cromwellian Ode on the first anniversary of Cromwell's return from
Ireland. If it marks a turn, it might be better to take it as a turn from
his praise of the monarchist Lovelace's poems.
When he wrote "The Horation Ode" and "The Garden" in the 1650s -- opposing
views of what-to-do-today (cultivate your garden or join in the fun) he was
hanging around with Fairfax. Thereafter, he joined the government.
The Anniversary Ode was wiped from (all but one copies, I think) of the
+Miscellaneous Poems+ published by Mary "Marvell" Powell shortly after
Marvell's death. Most copies seem to have been bought not for the poetry
but so that the buyers could tear out the engraved portrait of Marvell and
stick it on the wall as an anti-monarchical gesture. At his death, he was
mostly (as a writer) known for his "anonymous" anti-government satires (as
Mark points out below).
Beside Philip Larkin, he's Hull's ("I by the tide of Humber will complain")
other poet -- but Marvell was an MP, not a librarian.
> He was also, after the Retoration, a rather
> courageous MP and author of a series of long satirical poems that if his
> authorship had been found out could have got him hanged. And he's really
> not judgeable as if he were active today--the past was a different
country
> (see Carrington, _The Whig Interpretation of History_).
Concur. A complex fellow.
Robin Hamilton
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