Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667)

English poet. He introduced the Pindaric ode (based on the work of the Greek poet Pindar) to English poetry, and published metaphysical verse with elaborate imagery, as well as essays. His best-known collection is Poems (1656).

In his own day, Cowley was considered one of the foremost poets of the age. His style, which employs many conceits, is often compared with that of John Donne, but he owes as much to Ben Jonson as to Donne, standing centrally in the neoclassical tradition which links Jonson with John Dryden.

Cowley was born in London and studied at Cambridge and Oxford. In 1646, during the Civil War, he obtained a confidential appointment in the royal household, going to Paris with Queen Henrietta Maria and dealing with the cipher correspondence between her and King Charles. He remained abroad for about ten years.

Returning to England in 1656, he issued a volume containing earlier books of poems, Miscellanies, The Mistress, Pindarique Odes, and Davideis. On the death of Oliver Cromwell he returned to France as secretary to the royal family, and at the Restoration retired to the country in England.

His other works include five books on plants in Latin (1662, 1668, 1678); a comedy, Cutter of Coleman Street (1641); the prose work A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy (1661); a discourse on the government of Cromwell; and some fine essays.