SOURCE: "Cowley's 'Brutus' Ode: Historical Precepts and the Politics of Defeat," in Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. XIX, No. 3, Fall, 1977, pp. 382-91.

In the following essay, Keough rejects traditional allegorical readings of the "Brutus " ode, discerning instead a Christian resignation toward adverse political circumstances and an acceptance of Divine will. In Keough's judgment, the central thrust of the poem is Cowley's view that the Royalists must acknowledge the defeat of their cause as part of God's incomprehensible plan.

When Cowley chose Brutus as the subject for an ode, he chose a history which had a mixed interpretive tradition and from which, therefore, it was possible to derive several different precepts. Brutus had been praised or censured depending on how the interpreter construed his role in the murder of Julius Caesar. If, for example, the interpreter viewed Brutus' actions as those of a traitor both to friendship...