Richard Lovelace was born in 1618, perhaps at Woolwich (then in Kent), perhaps in Holland, eldest son of Sir William Lovelace of Woolwich and Anne Barne. His father died ten years later and his mother remarried. The son was educated at the recently-founded Charterhouse School (Crashaw was a contemporary) and Gloucester Hall, Oxford. When he left Oxford in 1636, and after probably no more than a few months in Cambridge, Lovelace “retired in great splendour to the court.” The odd phrasing, implying that he found his home at court, is from Anthony Wood's
Athenae Oxonienses, the principal source for the little known of Lovelace's life
.Wood, more even than the surviving verse, confirms or creates the image of Lovelace as a cavalier “eminent for his valour and poetry”. Already at…
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Citation: Cummings, Robert. "Richard Lovelace". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 November 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2797, accessed 21 November 2024.]
