To Penshurst

“To Penshurst” is one of those rare poems that actually begins a literary genre. Although celebrations of the glamorous homes of the wealthy and the appreciation of the moral value of such material comfort date back to antiquity— most notably during Rome’s glory with its signature interest in erecting great edifices—Jonson drew on his sense of the importance of the country home of his benefactor to forge a kind of poetry that offered an upbeat vision of the impact of wealth on families. Wealth gifts wisdom, a generosity of spirit, and the opportunity for religious education. Thus, wealth and the manifestations of wealth set a standard and define a code of conduct within the aristocracy.

These poems lavish descriptions on the country homes, certainly, but also stress the dignity of the spaces and how the homes and the families who lived there were in sync with the larger order of nature itself. Architecture becomes an expression of morality, a reassuring confirmation of a harmonic cosmos. Although it may not play well to a contemporary audience who may be more sympathetic to the rogue upstarts whose entrepreneurial spirit is reflected in the gaudy estates more recently built around Penshurst, for Jonson the lesson is clear: the wealthy are in their splendid homes and all is right with the world. The genre, which came to be known as country house poems, was short-lived relative to other literary genres. Within a century such depictions of the properties of the wealthy became increasingly ironic and sharply satiric. Within Jonson’s genre, however, there would be examples such as Thomas Carew’s “To Saxham” (1640), Robert Herrick’s “The Country Life” (1635), and Andrew Marvell’s “Upon Appleton House” (1681) with each poet acknowledging the influence of Jonson’s ode to Penshurst.