Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell (1621 - 1678) was an English poet and politician who is almost as enigmatic now as he was in his lifetime. Periods of his life are virtually unknown, and he wrote little that was self-revelatory. He composed love poetry, but had no known liaisons, unless with the woman who after his death claimed to have been married to him. His writings praised and mocked both sides in the English Civil War, and the only consistency that can be detected is a disposition to religious toleration. He was suspected to be the author of various anonymous verse satires (some still of disputed authorship), though he had also written beautiful lyrics and other poems not published till after his death. The one famous publication he put his name to in his life was a controversial prose work.

He was born on 31 March 1621 in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the fourth child and first son of a clergyman, who three years later moved to become a lecturer (a clergyman without a living, paid for by voluntary contributions) at Kingston upon Hull. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he is known to have written Latin and Greek poetry. His mother died in 1638 and his father in 1640. In 1641 or 1642 he is known to have gone abroad for about four years, probably as tutor to a gentleman's son. He was said to have gone to the Low Countries, France, Italy and Spain, and one of his satires is based in Rome. Nothing more is known of him for several years.

In 1649 the Cavalier poet Richard Lovelace published his Lucasta, and Marvell contributed a poem. Other poems show (rather detached) Royalist sympathies, but it is probable that it was only in the next year that he wrote his Horatian Ode on Cromwell's Return from Ireland, which praised Cromwell but also showed sympathy to the executed king, Charles I. The ode was not published during his lifetime. Certainly it was in 1650 that he became tutor to Lord Fairfax's daughter Mary. Fairfax had recently resigned as Lord General of the Parliamentary forces and gone to live at Nun Appleton, his Yorkshire house. It is here that Marvell probably wrote his "garden" and "mower" poems. In 1653 (ns) he is to be found in London, making use of Milton's help in soliciting a post under the Commonwealth. It is not known how he became acquainted with Milton. He did not get an official post but was soon appointed to be tutor to William Dutton, intended son-in-law and effectively the ward of Cromwell, being based at Eton in a puritan environment for this purpose. His poem on the first anniversary of Cromwell's rule was published immediately, but anonymously, in 1655. He and Dutton were at Saumur in France in 1656. In the following year he became Latin Secretary to the Protectorate, effectively Milton's assistant. Marvell's poem on Cromwell's death, showing a personal sorrow, was another that was published.