Andrew Marvell’s Country House and the Nation at Large “Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax” in the English Civil War Anonymous College

Andrew Marvell wrote his poem “Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax,” while he was serving as a tutor to the daughter of Lord Fairfax and living in his home, Nun Appleton Hall. The poem was written specifically for Lord Fairfax. In historical context, the poem was written in a time of political turmoil for England and the British Isles as a whole, as the English Civil War caused brutal fighting all over the British Isles between Royalist and opposing Parliamentarian forces. The idyllic English country house and its traditional lifestyle obviously serves as a direct contrast to the violence and political change, but through his poem, Marvell shows that the war impedes even the country house lifestyle. It is not nearly as simple as support or critique of the war. Instead, Marvell uses his position in the country and reflects it back to create a complex image of both Nun Appleton Hall and the nation at large. Everything about Marvell and “Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax” creates a representation of a liminal space, hanging in the balance of things. Marvell exists somewhere between servant and peer of Fairfax, and in the public space, worked somewhere between supporting the Parliament and Royalist forces, asserting his...