English poet and statesman, son of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, brought up in the household of Charles I alongside Charles II and James II. Villiers fought alongside the future Charles II for the royalist effort during the English Civil War, subsequently accompanying Charles into a period of exile prior to the Restoration. Villiers' life ended in poor health and depleted finances, with an embellished image of his end presented by Alexander Pope.

An English statesman, courtier, patron of the arts, and favorite of King James I, George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham, was an extremely influential and unpopular political figure whose aggressive and capricious foreign policies contributed to the eruption of the English Civil War.

Roman goddess of love.

Roman general and politician, a favorite of Julius Caesar, and later, an ally of Mark Antony.

English essayist, novelist, dramatist, and poet of the Tudor era, strongly associated with Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey.

Wife to the eccentric William Holles Vane (1713-1789), 2nd Viscount Vane. She was known for her many marital infidelities. Her Memoirs of a Lady of Quality were included in Tobias Smollett's novel The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751).

Both an architect and playwright, John Vanbrugh is best known for designing Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. His comedies The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697) engendered much controversy for their sexually explicit content. The Provoked Husband; or, A Journey to London (1782) was Vanbrugh's late attempt to retract the moral laxness of his earlier works, but Vanbrugh died before finishing it. It was completed by Colley Cibber as a work with somewhat less moral severity that Vanbrugh intended.

L'Astrée appeared in installments between 1607 and 1627, and was translated into English as Astrea (1657-1658). Along with Calprènede and Scudéry, d'Urfé was known for promoting literary and cultural aesthetics of delicate refinement exalting chivalric virtues partly through long works of romance fiction that constitute the most significant examples of the Roman de longue haleine, literally the "long-winded novel."

English clergyman, critic, fellow of Oxford University, and early editor of Spenser. Upton is best remembered for his 1758 edition of Spenser's Faerie Queene, the notes of which made connections between the poem's plot and Spenser's life, as well as linked the characters in the poem with historical figures.

Latin form of Odysseus.