SOURCE: Henderson, Fletcher Orpin. “Traditions of Précieux and Libertin in Suckling's Poetry.” ELH 4, no. 4 (December 1937): 274-98.

In the essay below, Henderson explores how the works of John Donne and French poetic traditions influenced Suckling's works.

The few students of recent times who have mentioned Sir John Suckling have uniformly recognized that he was influenced by the précieuse cult which grew up around Henrietta Maria. Among the first to discuss his poetry was J. B. Fletcher, who, in “Précieuses at the Court of Charles I,”¹ shows that one may draw up a code book of platonic love from the letters of Suckling. The lover is constant, although he recognizes a “curious permissive exception.” Finding “Aglaura” gone from town, he writes,²

though you have left behind you faces whose beauties might well excuse perjury in others, yet in me they cannot, since to the making that no...