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
In the pantheon of early twentieth-century British poetry, certain voices echo through the decades with enduring resonance, while others fade into the margins of literary history despite their once-prominent positions. Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols belongs to this latter category—a poet whose name once commanded respect in literary circles, whose work appeared alongside that of his more famous contemporaries, yet whos…
“He speaks our language better than we do merely because he is more skilful with it than we are; his skill is part of our skill, his power of our power.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
