Henry Vaughan

There is no portrait of Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan (1621-95), and little documentation of his life. However, at the tercentary of his death his writing remains influential and the writer continues to fascinate. Stevie Davies has produced a persuasive picture of a man beset by anxieties and challenges. The death of his twin brother, and the English Civil War were crucial turning points. His writer brother predeceased Henry by some thirty years, leaving him to search for a single identity, while the defeat of the Royalist party and the execution of Charles I made social and religious outcasts of the members of his class and political affiliation. Even the Restoration could not rescue the naturally introverted Vaughan. His writing was driven by nostalgia for his childhood and he attempted to recapture the individual that society and mankind had lost - a loss manifested in man's pollution of the environment.