‘The “inward warre”: William Habington’s Castara (1640) and an early modern Catholic poetics’

This article explores the third edition of William Habington (1605-1654)’s lyric poems, Castara (1640). This final edition of Castara— originally published in 1634 as a series of love poems to his wife, Lucy Herbert—was transformed by a prose sketch of ‘A Holy Man’ and twenty-two devotional poems. The article draws on Habington’s recusant roots and his engagement with French, Counter-Reformation Catholicism emanating from Queen Henrietta Maria’s court circle, and argues for an early modern Catholic poetics. It explores why these poems were published in 1640 and argues that this edition of Castara , by one of the ablest Catholics of his generation, offers a unique glimpse into, and understanding of, English Catholicism at the volatile political moment prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War.