Essay, Biography or Paragraph on “Robert Herrick” great author complete biography for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Robert Herrick

(1591 – 1674)

Robert Herrick was an English poet, generally considered the greatest of the Cavalier poets. He was born in Cheapside, Lon-don, in 1591, the seventh child of Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith. In November 1592, two days after making a will, Nicholas killed himself by jumping from the fourth-floor window of his house. The Queen’s Almoner had to be paid a £220 fee for not to confiscate the Herrick estate for the crown as was usually the case with suicides. There is no record of Herrick attending school, although it is possible he attended Westminster School. In 1607 he became apprenticed to his uncle Sir William Herrick as a goldsmith. Herrick entered St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1613, graduated a Bachelor of Arts in 1617, and Master of Arts in 1620. He was a disciple of Ben Jonson and his lyrics show considerable classical influence, but his greatness rests on his simplicity, his sensuousness, his care for design and detail, and his management of words and rhythms. Herrick also excelled in the writing of epigrams and epitaphs. Herick reputation declined after his death, but in the 19th cent. he was recognized as a great lyricist. He became the eldest of the “Sons of Ben”, Cavalier poets who idolised Ben Jonson, mixing in literary circles in London. On April 24, 1623 Herrick was ordained an Episcopal minister and acted as I chaplain to Buckingham on the expedition to the le de Re. In 1629 he was appointed by Charles I to the living of Dean Prior in the diocese of Exeter, a post he reluctantly accepted. There, in Devon, he lived in the seclusion of country life, and wrote some of his best work, never completely ceasing, however, to long for the pleasures of London.

In 1647, under the Commonwealth, he was expelled from the priory by the Protectorate government for refusing the Solemn ‘League and Covenant, and returned to London. In 1648 Herrick published his major collection, Hesperides, consisting of 1200 poems. Included separately in Hesperides was the subsection Noble Numbers, for the poems with sacred subjects. The entire collection contains more than 1200 short poems, ranging in form from epistles and eclogues to epigrams and love poems. Herrick was influenced by classical Roman poetry and wrote on pastoral themes, dealing mostly with English country life and village customs. With the restoration of Charles II in 1660 he was returned to Devon where he died and was buried a bachelor in 1674 at the age of eighty-three.