Sir Walter Scott, born in Edinburgh on 15 August 1771 and dead at Abbotsford on 21 September 1832, became one of the most influential writers in the English language: a poet who dominated the reading public before Byron, a novelist who effectively established the modern historical novel, an editor and antiquarian who preserved Scottish oral traditions, a lawyer and public official, a conservative political figure, an…
“But never a being, from my infancy upwards, hated task-work as I hate it; and yet I have done a great deal in my day.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Longing
William Alexander, later the first Earl of Stirling, was born about 1567 at Menstrie in Clackmannanshire, near Stirling, Scotland, and died in London on 12 February 1640. He belonged to that distinctive early Stuart class of men for whom poetry, government service, courtly advancement, religious reflection, and colonial ambition were not separate callings but overlapping forms of public life. In his own century he wa…
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Fear
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
From the biographies
scottish
history
Sir Walter Scott:
edinburgh, abbotsford, charlotte carpenter, minstrelsy of the scottish border, the lay of the last minstrel, marmion, the lady of the lake, rokeby.
William Alexander:
menstrie, clackmannanshire, first earl of stirling, james vi and i, charles i, nova scotia schemes, the tragedie of darius, aurora.
