Andre Marvell's Political Stance from the Cromwellian Regime to the Restoration

Abstract

This article attempts to sketch out briefly where Marvell as a man of letters stood in the midst of a turbulent age from the earlier to the mid-seventeenth century. Throughout his career, what stands out about Marvell's political stance is his toleration and apolitical attitude. From the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 to its ending in 1649, Marvell was a non-political outsider, showing his pro-Royalist outlook, only occasionally towards the end of the Civil War, in the form of an elegy or verse epistle. Marvell in his political thinking was not rigid nor fixed, he was free and flexible enough to adapt himself to the needs of the times without throwing away his deep seated attachment for political toleration under a moderate monarchy and so the great political poem, “A Horatian Ode,” which he dedicated to Cromwell was not just a tribute to the Lord Protector to come, it was a message he left to posterity, to the effect that moderation and toleration is all there is, after all, to make our life on earth a little bit worth living for.