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.
Biography
Cooke was born on October 26, 1816,[Trent, William Peterfield. "Southern Writers: Selections in Prose and Verse". New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905: 276.] in Martinsburg when it was then part of Virginia and spent the majority of his life in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley. [Hubbell, Jay B. "The South in American Literature: 1607-1900". Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1954: 502.] 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. [Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. "The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States". New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 192. ISBN 0195031865] 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." [Parks, Edd Winfield. "Ante-Bellum Southern Literary Critics". Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1962: 139] ]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". [Parks, Edd Winfield. "Ante-Bellum Southern Literary Critics". Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1962: 138] By 1835, he resolved to give up on poetry entirely. [Hubbell, Jay B. "The South in American Literature: 1607-1900". Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1954: 505.] 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. [Parks, Edd Winfield. "Ante-Bellum Southern Literary Critics". Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1962: 136] By 1847, the "Southern Literary Messenger" reported that Cooke had turned into a prose writer. [Hubbell, Jay B. "The South in American Literature: 1607-1900". Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1954: 509.]
Cooke was well-read and his poetry was inspired by Edmund Spenser, Geoffrey Chaucer and Dante Aligheri. [Parks, Edd Winfield. "Ante-Bellum Southern Literary Critics". Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1962: 137] He also admired the prose work of Poe, which he told in a letter:
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