In the annals of Victorian literature and art, few figures burn as brightly or as contradictorily as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882). Born Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti on May 12, 1828, in London, he would reverse his given names to honor the great Italian poet who profoundly influenced his work and worldview. A man of extraordinary artistic vision who helped revolutionize British poetry and painting, Rossetti em…
“The purpose of art is not to copy nature, but to create a beautiful equivalent.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Tenderness, Sorrow
Alfred Tennyson, later Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was born on 6 August 1809 at Somersby rectory in Lincolnshire, England, and died on 6 October 1892 at Lurgashall in Sussex. During his long life he became the defining poetic voice of the Victorian age: at once a public laureate who wrote for national occasions and a private, searching poet whose work returned obsessively to bereavement, desire, religious uncertainty, mem…
“It is the authors, more than the diplomats, who make nations love one another.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Sorrow