17th-century English poets

Sir John Davies (16 April 1569 (baptised) – 8 December 1626) was an English poet, lawyer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1597 and 1621.

Samuel Wesley (baptised 17 December 1662 – 25 April 1735) was a clergyman of the Church of England, as well as a poet and a writer of controversial prose.

John Marston (baptised 7 October 1576 – 25 June 1634) was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

Josuah Sylvester (1563 – 28 September 1618) was an English poet.

Sidney Godolphin (1610 (baptised) – 9 February 1643) was an English poet, courtier and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1628 and 1643.

William King (1663–1712) was an English poet.

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1 April 1647 – 26 July 1680), was an English poet and courtier of King Charles II's Restoration court.

John Milton (1562–1647) was an English composer and father of poet John Milton.

Sir John Denham FRS (1614 or 1615 – 19 March 1669) was an Anglo-Irish poet and courtier.

("Mary Wroth" redirects here. For the fictional character, see Mary Worth.) Lady Mary Wroth (18 October 1587 – 1651/3) was an English poet of the Renaissance.

Jane Barker (1652-1732) was a popular English fiction writer, poet, and a staunch Jacobite.

George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was a Welsh-born poet, orator and Anglican priest.

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (née Sidney; 27 October 1561 – 25 September 1621) was one of the first English women to achieve a major reputation for her poetry and literary patronage.

John Bracegirdle (died 1613-1614), was an English poet.

John Clavell (1601–1643) was a highwayman, author, lawyer, and doctor.

John Sandford or Sanford (1565? – 1629) was an English clergyman and academic, known as a grammarian of the Romance languages.

(For other people with the same name, see John Smith.) John Smith (1662–1717) was an English poet and playwright.

John Weever (1576–1632) was an English antiquary and poet.

Sir John Suckling (10 February 1609 – after May 1641) was an English poet and a prominent figure among those renowned for careless gaiety and wit, the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet.

Nicholas Brady (28 October 1659 – 20 May 1726), Anglican divine and poet, was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland.

Henry Constable (1562 – 9 October 1613) was an English poet, known particularly for Diana, one of the first English sonnet sequences.

Michael Drayton (1563 – 23 December 1631) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.

Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, de jure 13th Baron Latimer and 5th Baron Willoughby de Broke KB PC (/fʊlk ˈɡrɛvɪl/; 3 October 1554 – 30 September 1628), known before 1621 as Sir Fulke Greville, was an Elizabethan poet, dramatist, and statesman who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1581 and 1621, when he was raised to the peerage.

Anne (Norman) Ley (c. 1599 – 1641) was an English writer, teacher, and polemicist.

Phineas Fletcher (8 April 1582 – 13 December 1650) was an English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the Younger.

Abraham Fleming (Flemyng) (c.1552–1607) was an English clergyman, and a prolific writer, translator, contributor to others' texts, editor and poet.

Gervase (or Jervis) Markham (ca. 1568 – 3 February 1637) was an English poet and writer, best known for his work The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman first published in London in 1615.

Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet (March 1639 – 20 August 1701), was an English noble, dramatist and politician.

Sir Richard Blackmore (22 January 1654 – 9 October 1729), English poet and physician, is remembered primarily as the object of satire and as an example of a dull poet.

Leonard Digges (/dɪɡz/; 1588 – 7 April 1635) was an accomplished Hispanist and minor poet, a younger son of the astronomer Thomas Digges (1545–95, and younger brother of Sir Dudley Digges (1583–1639). After his father's death in 1595, his mother married Thomas Russell of Alderminster, who was named by William Shakespeare as one of the two overseers of his will. There are varying opinions about the extent to which the young Leonard Digges might have been influenced in his choice of profession by his stepfather's association with Shakespeare; disagreements about whether he was or was not personally acquainted with the playwright have in recent years eclipsed discussion of the work of Digges himself.

Nicholas Breton (also Britton or Brittaine) (1545–1626), English poet and novelist, belonged to an old family settled at Layer Breton, Essex.

Anne Howard, Countess of Arundel (née Dacre; 21 March 1557 – 19 April 1630), was an English poet, noblewoman, and religious conspirator.

Anne Vavasour (c. 1560 – c. 1650) was a Maid of Honour (1580–81) to Queen Elizabeth I of England, and the mistress of two aristocratic men.

Anthony Hammond (1668–1738) was an English politician and civil servant, known also as a poet and pamphleteer.

George Sandys (/ˈsændz/ SANDZ; 2 March 1577 – March 1644) was an English traveller, colonist and poet.

George Wither (11 June 1588 O.S. (21 June 1588 NS) – 2 May 1667 O.S. (12 May 1667 NS)) was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist.

Anthony Munday (or Monday) (1560? – 10 August 1633) was an English playwright and miscellaneous writer.

Abraham Holland (died 18 February 1626) was an English poet.

Giles Fletcher (also known as Giles Fletcher, The Younger) (1586? – Alderton, Suffolk, 1623) was an English poet chiefly known for his long allegorical poem Christ's Victory and Triumph (1610).

Thomas Ford (ca. 1580 – buried 17 November 1648) was an English composer, lutenist, viol player and poet.

Edmund Mary Bolton (1575?–1633?), English historian and poet, was born (by his own account) in 1575.

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (/də ˈvɪər/; 12 April 1550 – 24 June 1604) was an English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era.

Philip Ayres (1638-1712), the author of numerous books and pamphlets, flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century; was born at Cottingham, and educated at Westminster, and St John's College, Oxford.

William Barksted (fl. 1611) was an English actor and poet.

William Bosworth (died 1650?) was an English poet, known for a posthumous volume of verse from 1651.

Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1st Baronet PC (June 1608 – 16 June 1666) was an English poet and translator.

Samuel Daniel (1562 – 14 October 1619) was an English poet and historian.

Nahum Tate (/ˈneɪ.əm ˈteɪt/ NAY-əm TAYT; 1652 – 30 July 1715) was an Irish poet, hymnist and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692.

Sir Benjamin Rudyerd or Rudyard (1572 – 31 May 1658) was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1648.

Henry Lok (Lock, Locke) (1553?-1608?) was an English poet.

Robert Chester (flourished 1601) is the mysterious author of the poem Love's Martyr which was published in 1601 as the main poem in a collection which also included much shorter poems by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston, along with the anonymous "Vatum Chorus" and "Ignoto".

Theodore Bathurst (c1587–1652), also known as Theophilus Bathurstwas an English poet and translator who wrote in the Latin language.

Abraham Cowley (/ˈkuːli/; 1618 – 28 July 1667) was an English poet born in the City of London late in 1618.

John Abbot (1587/1588 – c. 1650) was an English Roman Catholic clergyman and poet.

William Alabaster (also Alablaster, Arblastier) (27 February 1567 – buried 28 April 1640) was an English poet, playwright, and religious writer.

Nathanael Carpenter (1589–ca.1628) was an English author, philosopher, and geographer.

Charles Best (1570–1627) was an English poet.

Christopher Brooke (died 1628) was an English poet, lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1604 and 1626.

Christopher Harvey (1597–1663) was an English clergyman and poet.

Clement Paman (d.1664) was an English poet and clergyman of the 17th century sometimes associated with the Cavalier Poets in the tradition of Ben Jonson and Thomas Carew.

William Warner (1558? – 9 March 1609) was an English poet and lawyer.

Alexander Brome (1620 – 30 June 1666) was an English poet.

Sir Arthur Gorges (c. 1569 – 10 October 1625), was a sea captain, poet, translator and courtier.

Sir Carr Scrope, 1st Baronet (20 September 1649 – 1680), versifier and man of fashion in the Restoration court of Charles II of England.

Charles Fitzgeoffrey (1576–1638) was an Elizabethan poet and clergyman.

Sir Edward Dyer (October 1543 – May 1607) was an English courtier and poet.

Edward Grant (or Graunt; 1540s–1601) was an English classical scholar, Latin poet, and headmaster of Westminster School.

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Samuel Austin the younger (died ca. 1665), poetical writer, inherited little of his father's humility, and seems, indeed, to have been an arrant coxcomb.