S outhwell, R obert

The Jesuit poet and prose stylist Robert Southwell (1561–95) is generally recognized as having played a significant role in the development of early modern English devotional writing. One of England's first metaphysical poets, Southwell helped popularize styles and genres of devotional literature that flourished in late Elizabethan and Stuart England. In terms of genre, he is best known for popularizing the ‘literature of tears’, in which sinners undergo conflicts of conscience, and for helping develop ‘the poetry of meditation’ more commonly associated with the work of John Donne (Martz 1962). In terms of rhetorical technique, Southwell influenced subsequent uses of both plain and grand styles in English religious poetry, not only in the work of fellow Catholics, but also in the ‘Anglican plain style’ of George Herbert and perhaps even in the ‘Protestant baroque’ of John Milton.