Marvell, Writer and Politician, 1621–1678

Marvell was by birth implicated in an English colonial project—the centralizing dominion over the regions—that prepared him well for national and international service. His lasting ties to his native Yorkshire (especially Hull) let him long represent centre to periphery, and periphery to centre, whether in politics or in poetry. After an education capped by service as travelling tutor on the Continent, Marvell returned in the late 1640s to an England still in the toils of revolution. Over the next decade he worked his way ever nearer the House of Cromwell. First elected as Cromwellian placeman in 1659, Marvell continued as MP until his death in 1678. His institutional service is much more fully documented than his well-guarded private life. But the complexity of his lyrics informs the complexity not only of his works as satirist and controversialist but also his busy London career and his voyaging on embassy.