Vero - Wikipedia - User contributions [en]

Abraham Cowley

2025-10-05T23:03:59Z

2001:8003:234F:1C00:ACF6:FFEE:FA48:556E: /* External links */

{{short description|17th-century English writer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}}
{{EngvarB|date=January 2020}}
[[File:Abraham Cowley by Sir Peter Lely.jpg|thumb|Abraham Cowley, portrait by [[Peter Lely]]]]
'''Abraham Cowley''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|uː|l|i
}};<ref>Alan Hager (ed.), [https://books.google.com/books?id=XnYTGjWspWIC ''The Age of Milton: An Encyclopedia of Major 17th-Century British and American Authors''], ABC-CLIO, 2004, p. 89.</ref> 1618{{snd}}28 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in the [[City of London]] late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his ''Works'' published between 1668 and 1721.<ref>''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' "Abraham Cowley"</ref>

==Early life and career==
Cowley's father, a wealthy Londoner, who died shortly before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of ''[[The Faerie Queene]]''. This became the favourite reading of her son, and he had read it twice before he was sent to school.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Cowley, Abraham|volume=7|pages=347–348 |first=Edmund |last=Gosse |authorlink=Edmund Gosse}}</ref>

As early as 1628, when he was only ten years old, he composed his ''Tragicall Historie of Piramus and Thisbe'', an epic romance written in a six-line stanza, a style of his own invention. It has been considered to be a most astonishing feat of imaginative precocity; it is marked by no great faults of immaturity, and possesses constructive merits of a very high order. Two years later, Cowley wrote another and still more ambitious poem, ''Constantia and Philetus''; around this time he was sent to [[Westminster School]]. At Westminster he displayed extraordinary mental precocity and versatility, writing when he was just thirteen the ''Elegy on the Death of Dudley, Lord Carlton''. These three lengthy poems, and some smaller ones, were collected in 1633, and published in a volume entitled ''Poeticall Blossomes'', dedicated to [[Lambert Osbaldeston]], the headmaster of the school, and prefaced by many laudatory verses by schoolfellows.<ref name="EB1911" />

Cowley at once became famous, although he was only fifteen years old. His next composition was a pastoral comedy, entitled ''Loves Riddle'', a marvellous production for a boy of sixteen, airy, correct and harmonious in language, and rapid in movement. The style is not without resemblance to that of the poet [[Thomas Randolph (poet)|Thomas Randolph]], whose earliest works had only just been printed.<ref name="EB1911" />

In 1637 Cowley went up to [[Trinity College, Cambridge]],<ref name="Venn">{{acad|id=CWLY636A|name=Cowley, Abraham}}</ref> where he "betook himself with enthusiasm to the study of all kinds of learning, and early distinguished himself as a ripe scholar".<ref name="EB1911" /> Portraits of Cowley, attributed to [[William Faithorne]] and [[Stephen Slaughter]], are in Trinity College's collection.<ref>{{cite web|title=Trinity College, University of Cambridge|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/search/located_at/trinity-college-cambridge-5846_locations|publisher=BBC Your Paintings|access-date=12 February 2018|archive-url=https://archive.today/20140511164255/http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/search/located_at/trinity-college-cambridge-5846_locations|archive-date=11 May 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> It was about this time that he composed his scriptural epic on the history of [[King David]], one book of which still exists in the Latin original. An English version of the epic in four books, called the ''Davideis'', was published after his death. The epic deals with the adventures of King David from his boyhood to the smiting of [[Amalek]] by [[Saul the King|Saul]], where it abruptly closes.<ref name="EB1911" />

[[File:Abraham Cowley - Project Gutenberg eText 20102.png|thumb|Abraham Cowley]]
In 1638 ''Loves Riddle'' and a Latin comedy, the ''Naufragium Joculare'', were printed, and in 1641 the passage of [[Charles II of England|Prince Charles]] (later to be King Charles II) through Cambridge led to the production of another dramatic work, ''The Guardian'', which was performed before the royal visitor with much success. During the civil war this play was privately performed at [[Dublin]], but it was not printed till 1650. It is bright and amusing, in the style common to the "sons" of [[Ben Jonson]], the university wits who wrote more for the closet than the public stage.<ref name="EB1911"/>

==Royalist in exile==
The learned quiet of the young poet's life was disrupted by the [[English Civil War|Civil War]] in 1642 as he warmly espoused the royalist side. He became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, but was ejected by the Parliamentarians in 1643. He made his way to Oxford, where he enjoyed the friendship of Lord Falkland, and gained the personal confidence of the royal family.<ref name="EB1911" /> Around this time, he published two anti-Puritan satires: ''A Satyre Against Separatists'' (attribution sometimes disputed), printed in 1642, and ''The Puritan and the Papist'' (1643).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Calhoun|first=Thomas Osborne|date=1991|title=Cowley's Verse Satire, 1642-43, and the Beginnings of Party Politics|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3508488|journal=The Yearbook of English Studies|volume=21|pages=197–206|doi=10.2307/3508488|jstor=3508488 |issn=0306-2473|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Janel|first1=Muller|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J90cWIBoAPcC|title=The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature|last2=Loewenstein|first2=David|last3=Mueller|first3=Janel|last4=Mueller|first4=Mueller, Janel M.|last5=Mueller|first5=William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emerita Janel|date=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-63156-3|language=en}}</ref>

After the [[Battle of Marston Moor]] he followed the queen to Paris, where his exile lasted twelve years. This period was spent almost entirely in the royal service, "bearing a share in the distresses of the royal family, or labouring in their affairs. To this purpose he performed several dangerous journeys into [[Jersey]], [[Scotland]], Flanders, the [[Netherlands]], or wherever else the king's troubles required his attendance. But the chief testimony of his fidelity was the laborious service he underwent in maintaining the constant correspondence between the late king and the queen his wife. In that weighty trust he behaved himself with indefatigable integrity and unsuspected secrecy; for he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand the greatest part of all the letters that passed between their majesties, and managed a vast intelligence in many other parts, which for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights every week."<ref name="EB1911" />

In spite of these labours he did not refrain from writing. During his exile he became familiar with the works of [[Pindar]], and determined to reproduce their lofty lyric passion in English.<ref name="EB1911" /> However, Cowley misunderstood Pindar's metrical practice and therefore his reproduction of the Pindaric [[ode]] form in English did not accurately reflect Pindar's poetics. But despite this problem, Cowley's use of iambic lines of irregular length, pattern, and rhyme scheme was very influential and these types of odes are still known in English as [[Pindarics]], Irregular Odes or Cowleyan Odes. Some of the most famous odes written after Cowley in the Pindaric tradition are [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]]'s "[[Ode on the Departing Year]]" and [[Wordsworth]]'s "[[Ode: Intimations of Immortality]]".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Cowley|first=Abraham|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qbI6AAAAMAAJ|title=The Essays and Other Prose Writings of Abraham Cowley|date=1915|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-960766-2|language=en}}</ref>

During his exile, Cowley wrote a history of the Civil War (which did not get published in full until 1973). In the preface to his 1656 ''Poems'', Cowley mentioned that he had completed three books of an epic poem on the Civil War, but had left it unfinished after the [[First Battle of Newbury]] when the Royalist cause began to lose significant ground. In the preface, Cowley indicated that he had destroyed all copies of the poem, but this was not precisely the truth. In 1679, twelve years after Cowley's death, a shortened version of the first book of the poem, called ''A Poem on the Late Civil War'' was published. It was assumed that the rest of the poem had indeed been destroyed or lost until the mid-20th century when scholar [[Allan Pritchard]] discovered the first of two extant manuscript copies of the whole poem among the Cowper family papers. Thus, the three completed books of Cowley's great (albeit unfinished) English epic, ''The Civill Warre'' (otherwise spelled "The Civil War"), was finally published in full for the first time in 1973.<ref>Ed. Allan Pritchard. Abraham Cowley, ''The Civil War'', Toronto,(UTPress: 1973) p.3</ref>

In 1647 a collection of his love verses, entitled ''The Mistress'', was published, and in the next year a volume of wretched satires, ''The Four Ages of England'', was brought out under his name, with the composition of which he had nothing to do{{Clarify|reason=This sentence does not make sense or is ambiguous in its meaning.|date=January 2023}}. In spite of the troubled times, usually so fatal to poetic fame, his reputation steadily increased, and when, on his return to England in 1656, he published a volume of his collected poetical works, he found himself without a rival in public esteem. This volume included the ''Pindarique Odes'', the ''Davideis'', the ''Mistress'' and some ''Miscellanies''. Among the latter are to be found Cowley's most vital pieces. This section of his works opens with the famous aspiration:
: "What shall I do to be for ever known,
: And make the coming age my own?"
It contains elegies on [[Henry Wotton|Wotton]], [[Anthony van Dyck|Vandyck]], Falkland, William Hervey and [[Richard Crashaw|Crashaw]], the last two being among Cowley's finest poems, brilliant, sonorous and original; the amusing ballad of ''The Chronicle'', giving a fictitious catalogue of his supposed amours; various [[gnomic poetry|gnomic]] pieces; and some charming paraphrases from Anacreon. The ''Pindarique Odes'' contain weighty lines and passages, buried in irregular and inharmonious masses of moral verbiage. Not more than one or two are good throughout, but a full posy of beauties may easily be culled from them. The long cadences of the ''[[Alexandrine]]s'' with which most of the strophes close, continued to echo in English poetry from [[John Dryden|Dryden]] down to [[Thomas Gray|Gray]], but the ''Odes'' themselves, which were found to be obscure by the poet's contemporaries, immediately fell into disesteem.<ref name="EB1911"/>

The 1656 edition includes the notorious passage in which Cowley abjures his loyalty to the crown: "yet when the event of battle, and the unaccountable will of God has determined the controversie, and that we have submitted to the conditions of the Conqueror, we must lay down our Pens as well as Arms, we must march out of our Cause itself, and dismantle that, as well as our own Towns and Castles, of all the Works and Fortifications as Wit and Reason by which we defended it."

'The Mistress' was the most popular poetic reading of the age, and is now the least read of all Cowley's works. It was the last and most violent expression of the amatory affectation of the 17th century, an affectation which had been endurable in [[John Donne|Donne]] and other early writers because it had been the vehicle of sincere emotion, but some find it complex in Cowley because for him it represented nothing but a love sublimation besides a rhetoric exercise, an exhibition of literary richness. He appears to have been of a reserved disposition; in the face of these elaborately erotic volumes, we are told that to the end of his days he never spoke of love to a single woman in real life. The "Leonora" of ''The Chronicle'' is said to have been the only woman he ever loved, and she married the brother of his biographer, Sprat.<ref name="EB1911"/>

==Return to England==
Soon after his return to England he was seized in mistake for another person, and only obtained his liberty on a bail of £1000. In 1658 he revised and altered his play of ''The Guardian'', and prepared it for the press under the title of ''[[The Cutter of Coleman Street]]'', but it was not staged until 1661. Late in 1658 [[Oliver Cromwell]] died, and Cowley took advantage of the resulting confusion to escape to Paris, where he remained until the Restoration brought him back in Charles's train. In 1662, he published the first two books of ''Plantarum'' (''Plantarum libri duo''). He published in 1663 ''Verses upon several occasions'', in which ''The Complaint'' is included.<ref name="EB1911" />

[[File:Abraham Cowley's Chertsey house - Project Gutenberg eText 20102.png|thumb|Abraham Cowley's Chertsey house]]
Cowley obtained permission to retire into the country; and through his friend, [[Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans|Lord St Albans]], he obtained a property near [[Chertsey]], where, devoting himself to botany and books, he lived in comparative solitude until his death. He took a practical interest in experimental science, and he was one of those advocating the [[Proposals for an English Academy|foundation of an academy]] for the protection of scientific enterprise. Cowley's pamphlet on ''The Advancement of Experimental Philosophy'', 1661, immediately preceded the foundation of the [[Royal Society]], to which Cowley, in March 1667, at the suggestion of [[John Evelyn]], addressed an ode. He is also known for having provided the earliest reference to [[coca]] in English literature, in "Pomona", the fifth book of his posthumously published Latin work ''Plantarum libri sex'' (included in ''Works'', 1668; translated as ''Six Books of Plants'' in 1689).<ref>
*{{cite book |last1=Mortimer |first1=William Golden |author1-link=W. Golden Mortimer |title=Peru. History of coca, 'the divine plant' of the Incas; with an introductory account of the Incas, and of the Andean Indians of to-day |date=1901 |publisher=J. H. Vail & Company |location=New York |via=[[archive.org]] |url=https://archive.org/details/peruhistoryofcoc00mortrich}}
*[https://archive.org/stream/peruhistoryofcoc00mortrich/peruhistoryofcoc00mortrich_djvu.txt ''Peru. History of coca, "the divine plant" of the Incas; with an introductory account of the Incas, and of the Andean Indians of to-day''] ([[Optical character recognition]] text). W. Golden Mortimer, M.D. Ed. J. H. Vail & Co, 1901. Abraham Cowley's poem "A Legend of Coca" : in chapter I ''An introduction to the history of coca'', pp. 25–27.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=The Abraham Cowley Text and Image Archive: University of Virginia|url=https://cowley.lib.virginia.edu/works/Bk5.htm|access-date=2022-01-21|website=cowley.lib.virginia.edu}}</ref>

He died in the Porch House in Chertsey, in consequence of having caught a cold while superintending his farm-labourers in the meadows late on a summer evening. On 3 August, Cowley was buried in [[Westminster Abbey]] beside the ashes of [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]] and [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]], where in 1675 the [[John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby|Duke of Buckingham]] erected a monument to his memory. The poetry of Cowley rapidly fell into neglect.<ref name="EB1911" />

[[File:CowleyWorks+Frontis copy.jpg|thumb|256px|Frontispiece and title page to a 1678 edition of Abraham Cowley's ''Works'']]
The first volume of Cowley's collected works was published in 1668, when [[Thomas Sprat]] brought out an edition in folio, to which he prefixed a life of the poet. This included ''Poemata Latina'', including the ''Plantarum libri sex'' (''Six Books of Plants''). Additional volumes were added in 1681 and 1689. There were many reprints of this collection, which formed the standard edition till 1881, when it was superseded by [[Alexander Balloch Grosart]]'s privately printed edition in two volumes, for the Chertsey Worthies library. The ''Essays'' have frequently been revived.<ref name="EB1911"/>

== Bibliography ==

* ''Poeticall Blossomes'' (1633; revised 1636)
* ''Loves Riddle'' (1638), a play
* ''Naufragium Joculare'' (1638), a play
* ''The Guardian'' (1641), a play, later revised as ''[[The Cutter of Coleman Street]]'' (performed 1661; published 1663)
* ''A Satyre Against Separatists'' (1642), also known as ''The Puritans Lecture''
* ''A Satire: The Puritan and the Papist'' (1643)
* ''The Mistress; or, Several Copies of Love-Verses'' (1647)
* ''Poems'' (1656), includes ''Miscellanies'', ''Anacreontiques'', ''Davideis'' and ''Pindarique Odes''
* ''A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy'' (1661)
* ''Plantarum libri duo'' (1662)
* ''Verses Lately Written Upon Several Occasions'' (1663)
* ''Ode to the Royal Society'' (1667)
* ''Works'' (1668), "Consisting of Those which were formerly Printed: and, Those which he Design'd for the Press", includes ''Essays'' and ''Plantarum libri sex''
* ''Works'' (1681), with a second part, "Being what was Written and Published by himself in his Younger Years"
* ''Works'' (1689), with a third part, "Being His Six Books of Plants, Never before Printed in English"<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cowley|first1=Abraham|url=http://archive.org/details/worksofmrabraham00cowl|title=The works of Mr Abraham Cowley : consisting of those which were formerly printed, and those which he design'd for the press, now published out of the author's original copies|last2=Sprat|first2=Thomas|date=1688|publisher=London : Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, and sold by Jos. Knight and Fra. Saunders, at the Sign of the Blue Anchor, in the lower walk of the New-Exchange|others=Boston College}}</ref>

'''Later compilations'''

* ''The Complete Works in Verse and Prose'', ed. Alexander B. Grosart (1881)<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cowley|first1=Abraham|url=http://archive.org/details/completeworksin00unkngoog|title=The complete works in verse and prose of Abraham Cowley; now for the first time collected and edited: with memorial introduction and notes and illustrations, portraits, etc.|last2=Grosart|first2=Alexander Balloch|date=1881|publisher=[Edinburgh, T. and A. Constable] Printed for private circulation|others=University of California}}</ref>
* ''Cowley's Essays'', ed. Henry Morley (Cassell, 1886)<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cowley|first1=Abraham|url=http://archive.org/details/essays00cowl_0|title=Essays|last2=Morley|first2=Henry|date=1886|publisher=New York : Cassell|others=University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign}}</ref>
* ''Prose Works'', ed. J. R. Lumby (1887)<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cowley|first1=Abraham|url=http://archive.org/details/proseworkswithin00cowluoft|title=Prose works : with introd. and notes|last2=Lumby|first2=J. Rawson (Joseph Rawson)|date=1887|publisher=Cambridge University Press|others=Robarts - University of Toronto}}</ref>
* ''English Writings'', ed. A. R. Waller, in two volumes (Cambridge, 1905–06)<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cowley|first1=Abraham|url=http://archive.org/details/poemsmiscellanie00cowliala|title=Poems: Miscellanies, The mistress, Pindarique odes, Davideis, Verses written on several occasions;|last2=Waller|first2=A. R. (Alfred Rayney)|date=1905|publisher=Cambridge : University Press|others=University of California Libraries}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Cowley|first1=Abraham|url=http://archive.org/details/essaysplayssundr00cowluoft|title=Essays, plays and sundry verses|last2=Waller|first2=A. R. (Alfred Rayney)|date=1906|publisher=Cambridge : University Press|others=Robarts - University of Toronto}}</ref>
* ''The Mistress with Other Select Poems'', ed. John Sparrow (Nonesuch, 1926)
* ''The Crypto-Mistress: Love Poems'' (Golden Eagle Press, 1948)
* ''Poetry and Prose'', ed. L. C. Martin (Oxford, 1949)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Johnson Dryden Addison|url=http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.86701|title=Abraham Cowley Poetry And Prose|date=1949}}</ref>
* ''The Collected Works'', Volume 1, ed. Thomas O. Calhoun and Laurence Heyworth (University of Delaware Press, 1989)
* ''The Collected Works'', Volume 2, Part 1, ed. Thomas O. Calhoun, Laurence Heyworth and J. Robert King (University of Delaware Press, 1993)
* ''Selected Poems'', ed. David Hopkins and Tom Mason (Carcanet, 1994)
* ''Love Poems'', ed. Anthony Astbury (Greville Press, 1995)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature|ref=none}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{wikiquote}}
* {{gutenberg author| id=1226| name=Abraham Cowley}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Abraham Cowley |sopt=t}}
* [https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Cowley%2C%20Abraham%2C%201618-1667%22%20AND%20%28%22the%20works%22%29 Works of Abraham Cowley] at Archive.org (pdf download)
* {{Librivox author |id=2657}}
* [http://essays.quotidiana.org/cowley/ Essays by Abraham Cowley at Quotidiana.org]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=JCwJAAAAQAAJ&q=anent&pg=PA311 Samuel Johnson elevates Cowley for "easy poetry"]

{{Metaphysical poetry}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowley, Abraham}}
[[Category:1618 births]]
[[Category:1667 deaths]]
[[Category:English essayists]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:People from the City of London]]
[[Category:People educated at Westminster School, London]]
[[Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey]]
[[Category:17th-century English poets]]
[[Category:17th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:17th-century English writers]]
[[Category:Male essayists]]
[[Category:English male poets]]
[[Category:Sports poets]]
[[Category:17th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:Neo-Latin poets]]
[[Category:Translation theorists]]

F. W. Harvey

2025-10-05T23:01:39Z

2001:8003:234F:1C00:ACF6:FFEE:FA48:556E: /* External links */

{{Short description|English poet, 1888–1957}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Infobox writer 
|name = Frederick William Harvey
|image = Lieutenant FW Harvey DCM.jpg
|caption = Photograph of F. W. Harvey circa 1916.
|birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1888|3|26}}
|birth_place = [[Hartpury]], [[Gloucestershire]], England
|death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1957|2|13|1888|3|26}}
|death_place = [[Yorkley]], Gloucestershire, England
|resting_place = Saint Peter's Church, [[Minsterworth]], Gloucestershire
|occupation = Poet, Soldier, Lawyer
|awards = [[Distinguished Conduct Medal]]
|nationality = British
|genre = Poetry, Autobiography, Radio
|notableworks = ''A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and Abroad'', <br>''Gloucestershire Friends: Poems from a German Prison Camp'', <br>''Ducks, and other Verses'', <br>''Comrades in Captivity''
|spouse = {{unbulleted list| Sarah Anne Kane}}
|signature =
}}
'''Frederick William Harvey''' [[Distinguished Conduct Medal|DCM]] (26 March 1888 – 13 February 1957), often known as '''Will Harvey''', was an English poet, broadcaster and solicitor. His poetry became widely popular during and after [[World War I]].

==Early life==
Harvey was born in 1888 in [[Hartpury]], [[Gloucestershire]], and grew up in [[Minsterworth]]. He was educated at the [[King's School, Gloucester]], where he formed a close friendship with [[Ivor Gurney]], and then at [[Rossall School]]. Gurney and [[Herbert Howells]], another local composer, later set a number of his poems to music.

He started on a legal career, which would always be somewhat tentative; and began to consider conversion to [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]].{{cn|date=September 2022}}

==World War I==
On 8 August 1914, four days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany, Harvey joined the [[5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment]] as a private. Shortly afterwards, in November, he became a [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]]. He was an adherent of the [[distributism]] movement, described as a "third way", in opposition to both socialism and capitalism; and he was influenced by the work of [[G. K. Chesterton]] and [[Hilaire Belloc]].{{cn|date=September 2022}}

His battalion was posted to [[France]] in March 1915, where he was promoted to [[lance corporal]] and awarded the [[Distinguished Conduct Medal]]. His citation for the DCM reads:
{{quote|2371 Lance-Corpl. F. W. Harvey, 1/5th Gloucestershire R[egiment]. ([[Territorial Force|T.F.]])

For conspicuous gallantry on the night of Aug. 3–4, 1915, near [[Hebuterne]], when, with a patrol, he and another non-commissioned officer went out to reconnoitre in the direction of a suspected listening-post. In advancing they encountered the hostile post, evidently covering a working party in the rear. Corporal Knight at once shot one of the enemy, and, with Lance-Corporal Harvey, rushed the post, shooting two others, and, assistance arriving, the enemy fled. Lance-Corporal Harvey pursued, felling one of the retreating Germans with a bludgeon. He seized him, but, finding his revolver empty and the enemy having opened fire, he was called back by Corporal Knight, and the prisoner escaped. Three Germans were killed, and their rifles and a Mauser pistol were brought in. The patrol had no loss.{{sfn|Boden|2011|p=91}}}}

Harvey returned to England for officer training, but after being commissioned and returning to France he was captured on 17 August 1916 in the [[Germany|German]] front-line [[trench]] while carrying out a reconnaissance patrol.{{sfn|Harvey|1920|p=2−7}} He spent the rest of the war in [[List of prisoner-of-war camps in Germany|prisoner-of-war camps]], including those at [[Gütersloh]], [[Krefeld|Crefeld]], [[Schwarmstedt]], [[Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp|Holzminden]], [[Bad Colberg-Heldburg|Bad Colberg]], and [[Stralsund]].{{sfn|Harvey|1920}}

==Writing==
Soon after his arrival in France, Harvey began to contribute to a trench newspaper, the ''Fifth Gloucester Gazette''. His first volume of poems, ''A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and Abroad'', was published in September 1916, shortly after his capture. He began to write more intensively in captivity, and poems were sent back to England for publication: his second collection, ''Gloucestershire Friends'', appeared in 1917. His time in the camps is held to be his most productive period of writing. On returning from a spell of [[solitary confinement]] at Holzminden after a failed escape attempt, he saw that a fellow prisoner had drawn a picture over his bed in chalk of ducks in a pool of water. This inspired his most celebrated poem (and the title poem of his third collection, published in 1919), "Ducks".{{sfn|Harvey|1920|p=231−233}}

==Post-war life==
Harvey returned home in 1919, married in 1921, and returned to legal practice. He became a respected and loved figure in the [[Forest of Dean]]. He worked largely as a defence solicitor (his own captivity convincing him that incarceration was destructive and pointless), and became known as the "poor man's solicitor". His work was not financially successful, and in the 1930s he sold off his practice.<ref name=ODNB>{{harvnb|Childs|2011}}</ref>

In 1920 he published a memoir of his prison-camp experiences, ''Comrades in Captivity''; and in 1921 ''Farewell'', an acknowledgement of his intention to remove himself from the literary world. He had a brief creative union with his great friend and collaborator, [[Ivor Gurney]]. Gurney had written "After-Glow" and "To His Love" for Harvey, on hearing of his supposed death in 1916;<ref>{{Cite book |editor-first=P. J. |editor-last=Kavanagh |editor-link=P. J. Kavanagh |title=Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1982 |pages=35, 41, 229}}</ref> and "Ypres-Minsterworth" as a gesture of solidarity with him in his captivity.<ref>J. Potter ed., ''Three Poets of the First World War'' (Penguin 2011) pp. 9 and 119.</ref> Their reunion was cut sadly short by Gurney's mental breakdown in 1922.

Harvey's gift for oration and his versatile voice and scripting led him to become a popular broadcaster at the BBC, Bristol, where he used his popularity to promote the Forest of Dean, its people and traditions.{{cn|date=September 2022}} He furthered local choirs, musicians and young authors such as [[Leonard Clark (poet)|Leonard Clark]]. He was friends with [[Rutland Boughton]] and the local [[Member of parliament|MP]], [[Morgan Philips Price]], who worked with him to promote the arts and the interests of Foresters.

==Later years==
In later life Harvey craved the comradeship he had found in the trenches and was saddened that the new social order he had expected never appeared.{{cn|date=September 2022}} His later poetry of remembrance captured those feelings, but retained the essential humour of his early work and included verse in local dialect.

He died in 1957 and was buried at [[Minsterworth]].

==Personal life==
In 1921 Harvey married Anne Kane, an Irish nurse. They had two children, Eileen Anne (born 1922) and Patrick (born 1925).<ref name=ODNB/> He led a Bohemian lifestyle, rejecting material values, and often recklessly gave away his professional services and income.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

==Reputation and legacy==
[[File:Memorial to Frederick William Harvey in Gloucester Cathedral.jpg|thumb|right|340px|Memorial in [[Gloucester Cathedral]]]]
Harvey's poems published during and immediately after World War I were acclaimed, and his status was acknowledged when a collection was published in 1926 in the ''Augustan Books of Modern Poetry'' series, edited by Edward Thompson.

The lyricism of his poetry led to it being set to music by his friends [[Ivor Gurney]], [[Herbert Howells]] and Sir [[Herbert Brewer]], and others, including post-war composers such as [[Johnny Coppin]]. His work is noted particularly for its appreciation of the natural world and the landscape and traditions of West [[Gloucestershire]].

Harvey was commemorated in 1980 by a slate memorial tablet in the south transept of [[Gloucester Cathedral]]. "Ducks", Harvey's best known verse, was voted one of the nation's 100 favourite poems in 1996 in a nationwide poll conducted by the [[BBC]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Nation's Favourite Poems |publisher=BBC |location=London |year=1996 |isbn=0-563-38487-5}}</ref>

==Works==
===Poetry collections===
*{{Cite book |title=A Gloucestershire Lad at Home and Abroad |url=https://archive.org/details/gloucestershirel00harv |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |place=London |year=1916}}
*{{Cite book |title=Gloucestershire Friends: Poems from a German Prison Camp |url=https://archive.org/details/gloucestershiref00harv |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |place=London |year=1917}}
*{{Cite book |title=Ducks, and other Verses |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |place=London |year=1919}}
*{{Cite book |title=Farewell |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |place=London |year=1921}}
*{{Cite book |title=September and Other Poems |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |place=London |year=1925}}
*{{Cite book |title=In Pillowell Woods |publisher=Frank Harris |place=Lydney |year=1926}}
*{{Cite book |title=Gloucestershire: A Selection from the Poems of F. W. Harvey |publisher=Oliver & Boyd |place=Edinburgh |year=1947}}

===Edited collections===
*{{Cite book |title=The Augustan Books of Modern Poetry: Frederick William Harvey |editor-first=Edward |editor-last=Thompson |place=London |publisher=Ernest Benn |year=1926}}
*{{Cite book |title=Forest Offering: A Selection from the Unpublished Poems of F. W. Harvey, 1888–1957 |publisher=Frank Green |year=1962}}
*{{Cite book |title=F. W. Harvey: Collected Poems 1912–1957 |place=Coleford |publisher=Douglas McLean |year=1983}}
*{{Cite book |title=F. W. Harvey: Selected Poems |editor1-first=Anthony |editor1-last=Boden |editor2-first=R. K. R. |editor2-last=Thornton |place=Coleford |publisher=Douglas McLean |year=2011}}

===Novel===
*{{Cite book |first=F. W. |last=Harvey |title=A War Romance |place=Stroud, Glos. |publisher=The History Press|year=2014}}

===War memoirs===
*{{Cite book |first=F. W. |last=Harvey |title=Comrades in Captivity: a Record of Life in Seven German Prison Camps |place=London |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |year=1920 |ref=none}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
*{{Cite book |title=F. W. Harvey: Soldier, Poet |first=Anthony |last=Boden |publisher=Douglas McLean |edition=revised & expanded |year=2011 |isbn=9780946252800}}
*{{ODNBweb |first=Peter |last=Childs |title=Harvey, Frederick William (1888–1957) |origyear=2004 |year=2011 |edition=online |id=75642 }}
*{{Cite book |first=Leonard |last=Clark |title=A Fool in the Forest |place=London |publisher=Dennis Dobson |year=1965 }}
*{{Cite book |title=F. W. Harvey: Poet of Remembrance |first=Ross |last=Davies |place=London |series=The War Poets Series |publisher=Cecil Woolf |year=2009 |ISBN=978-1-897967-96-6}}
*{{Cite book |first=F. W. |last=Harvey |title=Comrades in Captivity: a Record of Life in Seven German Prison Camps |place=London |publisher=Sidgwick & Jackson |year=1920|isbn=9781297529542}}
*{{Cite book |first=Bill |last=Tandy |title=A Doctor in the Forest |place=Coleford |publisher=Douglas McLean |year=1979 |ISBN=0950592617}}
*{{Cite book |title=The Laureate of Gloucestershire |first=Frances |last=Townsend |publisher=Redcliffe Press |place=Bristol |year=1988 |isbn=0948265671}}
*{{Cite book |first=Brian |last=Waters |title=The Forest of Dean |publisher=J.M. Dent |place=London |year=1951}}

==External links==
* {{Librivox author |id=16360}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvey, FW}}
[[Category:20th-century English poets]]
[[Category:1888 births]]
[[Category:1957 deaths]]
[[Category:Burials in Gloucestershire]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism]]
[[Category:People from Hartpury]]
[[Category:People educated at Rossall School]]
[[Category:Gloucestershire Regiment soldiers]]
[[Category:Gloucestershire Regiment officers]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal]]
[[Category:British World War I prisoners of war]]
[[Category:World War I prisoners of war held by Germany]]
[[Category:English World War I poets]]
[[Category:Sports poets]]
[[Category:English solicitors]]
[[Category:People educated at The King's School, Gloucester]]
[[Category:English male poets]]
[[Category:20th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:People from Minsterworth]]
[[Category:20th-century English lawyers]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Military personnel from Gloucestershire]]
[[Category:Poètes maudits]]