Voice of the Country-House Poem

Voice of the Country-House Poem

There exists a small genre of poetry, dating from the early

seventeenth century, known as the country-house poem. Ostensibly the

impulse of these poems was to praise and please a wealthy patron,

thereby gaining favour, status and wealth. A less apparent facet also

existed within these poems, and that was the poet's embedded

observations with regard to social values of the time that subtly and

effectively criticized and praised the existing system. The dexterity

with which a poet combined these opposing purposes, while avoiding

implicating the intended patron in the criticism ultimately ensured

continuation of the crucial patronage, which pervaded all aspects of

the period's social system. Ben Jonson's To Penhurst, often touted as

the prototype of the country-house poem, extols the Sydney estate as

the archetype of the country estate that is both bounteous and

cultured, while subtle irony reveals the innate criticism of the

system of which Penhurst is a part without endangering the

indispensable patronage.

In Jonson's time patronage was the cornerstone of the social system

that permeated all elements of existence and was therefore vital to

anyone who wished to succeed in building a secure place for himself

within that system. Since power and wealth rested in the hands of the

landowners it was they who extended patronage at their whim to those

who they felt merited the distinction. In a time of shifting loyalties

and preferences security, social status and a sense of self depended

on enduring patronage and the sometimes-difficult intent of the poet

to retain and increase any patronage became the pr...

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...lade was free to strike at the

ways in which the other households did not measure up to the same mark

thereby providing a channel for critical commentary based on the very

same social values used to praise. This skillful convergence of the

two emerged as vitally important in defining the country-house poem.

Works Cited

Evans, Robert C. "Literature as Equipment for Living: Ben Jonson and

the Poetics of Patronage". CLA Journal 30.3 March, 1987: 2.

Jonson, Ben. "To Penhurst". The Broadview Anthology of

Seventeenth-CenturyVerse & Prose Volume 1: Verse ED. Alan Rudrum,

Joseph Black & Holly Faith Nelson. Peterborough: Broadview Press Ltd.,

2001. 68-70.

McGuire, Mary Anne C. "The Cavalier Country-House Poem. Mutation on a

Ben Jonson Tradition": Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 19.l

Winter, 1979: 94.