Abraham Cowley

Cowley, Abraham (1618–67), English poet and essayist of the metaphysical and neoclassical periods. His Miscellanies (1656) and The Mistress (1647) reflect the themes and motifs of the metaphysical poets. Davideis (1656), an unfinished epic in couplets, and the Pindarique Odes (1656) are neoclassical in their restraint, and his Essays in Verse and Prose (1668) reflect the influence of Montaigne's essays. Cowley sided with the Royalist cause during the English Civil War. Later he studied medicine at Oxford, and helped found the Royal Society, dedicated to the promotion of the physical sciences.

See also: Metaphysical poets.