Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Robert Southey
Hannah More
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Robert Southey was born in Bristol on 12 August 1774 and died at Greta Hall, near Keswick in the Lake District, on 21 March 1843. During his lifetime he was among the most visible men of letters in Britain: a poet, historian, biographer, reviewer, editor, translator, political commentator, children’s writer, and, from 1813 until his death, Poet Laureate. Yet posterity has treated him unevenly. He is often remembered…
“Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be.”
Hannah More was born on 2 February 1745 at Fishponds, then a village near Bristol in Gloucestershire, and died on 7 September 1833 at Clifton, Bristol. During her long life she became, in succession and sometimes simultaneously, a schoolteacher, playwright, poet, essayist, novelist, religious writer, philanthropist, educational campaigner, abolitionist, and one of the most recognizable female public intellectuals in…
“An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with.”
About 0 km separate Bristol, England from Bristol, England. Both have ground in Bristol.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Robert Southey: bristol, greta hall, lake district, pantisocracy, edward fricker, samuel taylor coleridge, joan of arc, thalaba the destroyer. Hannah More: fishponds, bristol, clifton, william turner, david garrick, bluestocking movement, the search after happiness, the fatal falsehood.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Robert Southey: Sorrow, Irony, Wonder. Hannah More: Spirituality, Joy, Peace.
Install V2Melody
Add a home-screen icon for quicker listening in a simple app window.