ABSTRACT
Annabel Patterson's work combines a wide understanding of the different types of Civil War writing, and the cultural dynamic which produced them, with a thorough close reading of Marvell's poems. For Patterson, the poems display the uniqueness of Oliver Cromwell and of England in Europe, a celebration of a new forceful culture. What she crucially distinguishes, though, is Marvell's true political poetry from mere propaganda, showing how he uses verse to project a critical, considered vision which is his own. His celebration of Cromwell reflects Marvell's maturing social thinking, pursued in both poetry and prose, which reveals him to be a political theorist and commentator who stands alongside the best and most influential of his age. The Horatian Ode, responds to political crisis by deft manipulation of appropriate traditions. Patterson examines the two lengthy poems on Cromwell written in the 1650s, demonstrating how Marvell registers a belief in Cromwell as the centre of a developing godly commonwealth.
