Lanyer, Aemilia (Vol. 30) | The Country-House Poem: "Cooke-ham":
The Country-House Poem: "Cooke-ham":
"The Description of Cooke-ham," in 210 lines of pentameter couplets, presumably executes the Countess of Cumberland's charge, referred to in Salve Deus as not yet fulfilled, to write "praisefull lines of that delightfull place," the "Paradice" of Cookham (sig. A). Although the house and estate do not survive, the area is still a beauty spot. Located in Berkshire a few miles from Maidenhead, it has extensive frontages on the Thames, rich woodlands, lush meadows, picturesque scattered hamlets, and high hills in the west. The poem sustains a gentle elegiac tone throughout, since this is a valediction by author and residents to an Edenic pastoral life and place.
"Cooke-ham" may have been written before Jonson's "To Penshurst," published in 1616 but from the reference to Prince Henry (1. 77) obviously written before his death in November 1612. Jonson's poem, usually identified as the first English country-house...
[The entire page is 2680 words long]
Navigate
