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.
Edward FitzGerald
Edmund Clarence Stedman
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Edward FitzGerald was born Edward Purcell on 31 March 1809 at Bredfield House, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, England, and died on 14 June 1883 at Merton, Norfolk. He occupies an unusual position in English literary history. He wrote original prose, verse, letters, dialogues, and adaptations, translated from Spanish, Greek, and Persian, and moved in circles that included Alfred Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Tho…
“I am a Pagan, and shall remain a Pagan.”
In the heart of nineteenth-century American letters stands a figure who defied easy categorization, a man who straddled two seemingly incompatible worlds with remarkable grace. Edmund Clarence Stedman, born on October 8, 1833, in Hartford, Connecticut, would become known as the "Bard of Wall Street," a sobriquet that captured both the paradox and the peculiar achievement of his life. For forty-five years, he navigate…
“The poet is a creator, not an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say in prose what can only be expressed in song.”
About 5,483 km separate Bredfield, Suffolk, England from Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Edward FitzGerald: bredfield house, the rubáiyát of omar khayyám, alfred tennyson, william makepeace thackeray, trinity college cambridge, george crabbe, edward byles cowell, euphranor. Edmund Clarence Stedman: hartford, bard of wall street, elizabeth clementine stedman, new york city, the norwich tribune, how old brown took harper's ferry, pan in wall street, yale university.
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.
Edward FitzGerald: Peace, Joy, Tenderness. Edmund Clarence Stedman: Sorrow, Tenderness, Longing.
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