“A Rapture” is without question the most well-known and closely studied poem by Cavalier Poet Thomas Carew (1595-1640). Carew earned a degree from Merton College, studied law, enjoyed several diplomatic positions, fought in the First Bishop’s War and eventually succumbed to the ravages of syphilis. Along the way he found time to compose some of the finest love poems of the age which was published posthumously and, most memorably, he composed what critic has labeled “the most genuinely poetic of all the erotic poems of the century.”
Modern readers looking for the scandalously explicit play-by-play of the act of intercourse may scratch their heads in wonder when trying to detect the controversial suggestiveness in “A Rapture” from the perspective of unlimited availability of pornography on the internet. When reading “A Rapture” it is essential to remember that this is a poem that was going to be read from a carefully bound hardcover book most likely after the sun had gone down and by the flickering light of candles.
References to sailing between the huge outstretched legs of the ancient statue of the Colossus of Rhodes may seem tame today, but for those reading in the 1640’s such a reference was as provocative as what you might see on the TNT channel in the 21st century. By the time the poem has moved into tastefully eroticized allusion and symbolism in lines like
tall pine shall in the Cyprian strait
ride safe at anchor and unlade her freight;
My rudder, with thy bold hand, like a tried
and skillful pilot thou shalt steer, and guide
My bark into love's channel.
Carew has effectively taken his talents over to the FX Channel where far more flesh is allowed for far longer periods far earlier in the evening. Carew’s language may be the stuff of fancy poetic devices, but it doesn’t take an English major to get at what is happening here with references to “tall pines” and a skilled pilot guiding his “bark into love’s channel.” From the perspective of a time when men wearing velvet short pant and an enormous ruffled collar were battling engage in a battle for the future of England with Puritans—Puritans!—this language and the concerted lack of any effort to disguise its true meaning was hot stuff guaranteed to raise the temperature in any enclosed space by a few degrees.
The battle with Puritan morality is more than just background noise. In fact, it was the insistence of the Puritans with their dubious claims to a higher standard of morality to impose that morality on others which is really at the heart of “A Rapture.” The narrative imagines a sexual utopia free from the puritanical moral constraints upon the free expression of love while also challenging prevailing attitudes about legislating morality through arbitrary edicts attempting to hide their true motives of establishing control over natural human behavior.
