Richard Henry Horne entered the world in London on the last day of 1802 (though he himself, with characteristic contrariness, sometimes gave the date as New Year's Day 1803), the son of James Horne, a quarter-master in the 61st Regiment of Foot. His father's military postings took the family to Guernsey, where they lived until James Horne's death in 1810 left the boy fatherless at the age of seven or eight. The young…
“In fine—we want to know as nearly as we can, through the medium of another language, what that man said, not what you can make of his words.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Romantic Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Sorrow, Irony
Thomas Hood was born in London on 23 May 1799 and died there on 3 May 1845, only twenty days short of his forty-sixth birthday. He occupies a distinctive, sometimes deceptively difficult place in English literary history. To generations of readers he has been the author of jokes, puns, comic ballads, and apparently effortless verbal absurdities; to others he is the compassionate author of “The Song of the Shirt” and…
“The best of friends must part.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
