Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol on 20 November 1752 and died in London on 24 August 1770, not yet eighteen years old. Few English poets have left behind a life so brief, so fiercely productive, and so persistently mythologized. His name has become almost inseparable from the image of the neglected young genius: a boy of provincial poverty who invented a medieval poetic world, attempted to conquer the London lit…
“This is the last Will and Testament of me Thomas Chatterton of the City of Bristol; being sound in body, or it is the fault of my last Surgeon.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Folk & Ballad Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Wonder
Oliver Goldsmith, born probably on 10 November 1728 and dead on 4 April 1774, lived only forty-five years, yet he became one of the most various, humane, and enduring voices in eighteenth-century English literature. He was an Irishman who made his reputation in London, a clergyman’s son who never settled into a profession, a medical student who rarely practised medicine, a chronically indebted writer who produced som…
“Every absurdity has a champion to defend it; for error is always talkative.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Irish Poets, Light Verse Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
