Charles Hamilton Sorley was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 19 May 1895, and was killed in France on 13 October 1915, not yet twenty-one years old. His literary life lasted only a few years, and his published body of verse was small, much of it assembled after his death. Yet he occupies a singular place among the poets of the First World War. Unlike writers whose work became famous through prolonged service, later dis…
“It seems to me that Germany's only fault is a lack of real insight and sympathy with those who differ from her. We are not fighting a bully, but a bigot. Each side has a virtue for which it is fighting, and each that virtue's supplementary vice. But I think that tolerance is the larger virtue of the two.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Alfred Joyce Kilmer was born on 6 December 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, into a household in which intellectual seriousness and artistic feeling were not opposites but companion forces. His father, Frederick Barnett Kilmer, was a physician, analytical chemist, and later a leading scientific figure at Johnson & Johnson; his work helped establish standards for pharmaceutical and consumer-health products in an era…
“I believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic view of ethics and aesthetics, for a long time... I wanted something not intellectual, some conviction not mental – in fact I wanted Faith.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace
