Children 5 Siblings John Esten Cooke Education Princeton University | Role Poet Name Philip Cooke | |
Born October 26, 1816 Martinsburg, West Virginia Notable work Froissart Ballads: and Other Poems Spouse(s) Williann Corbin Tayloe Burwell (1837 - 1850, his death) Relatives John Esten Cooke (brother)
John Pendleton Kennedy (cousin) Died January 20, 1850, Clarke County, Virginia, United States Books Froissart Ballads: And Other Poems | ||
Philip Pendleton Cooke (October 26, 1816 – January 20, 1850) was an American lawyer and minor poet from Virginia. He was the brother of John Esten Cooke.
Contents
Biography
Cooke was born on October 26, 1816, in Martinsburg when it was then part of Virginia and spent the majority of his life in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley. He attended Princeton University, where he wrote the poems "Song of the Sioux Lovers", Autumn", and "Historical Ballads, No. 6 Persian: Dhu Nowas", as well as a short story, "The Consumptive" before his graduation in 1834. After graduation, he followed in his father's profession as a lawyer. His two main hobbies, however, were hunting and writing, though he never made a profession out of his writing. He once wrote: "I detest the law. On the other hand, I love the fever-fits of composition."
Cooke lived for a time at Saratoga, the former home of Daniel Morgan. He died January 20, 1850.
Writings
Cooke believed his literary sustenance came from his library rather than from writing, despite several important literary figures — including John P. Kennedy and Rufus Wilmot Griswold — who encouraged him to write more. Edgar Allan Poe praised his work and wrote to him that he would "give your contributions a hearty welcome, and the choicest position in the magazine". By 1835, he resolved to give up on poetry entirely. He believed that poetry was as barren "as a worn-out tobacco field" and that even William Cullen Bryant, who he considered "the master of them all", had "sheltered himself from starvation behind the columns of a political newspaper" rather than making money from poetry. By 1847, the Southern Literary Messenger reported that Cooke had turned into a prose writer.
Cooke was well-read and his poetry was inspired by Edmund Spenser, Geoffrey Chaucer and Dante Aligheri. He also admired the prose work of Poe, which he told in a letter:
I have always found some remarkable thing in your stories to haunt me long after reading them. The teeth in Berenice—the changing eyes of Morella—that red & glaring crack in the House of Usher—the pores of the deck in the MS. Found in a Bottle—the visible drops falling into the goblet in Ligeia.