John Crowe Ransom stood at the crossroads of American poetry and criticism in the twentieth century, a figure whose influence extended far beyond the elegant verses he composed. Born on April 30, 1888, in Pulaski, Tennessee, he would become the architect of a critical revolution, the mentor to some of America's finest poets, and the principal voice of a distinctly Southern literary aesthetic that sought to reconcile…
“Perhaps I use a distasteful figure, but I have the idea that what we need is Criticism, Inc., or Criticism, Ltd.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Imagist Poets, Modernist Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Irony
Robert Seymour Bridges was born on 23 October 1844 at Walmer, near Deal in Kent, into a prosperous and cultivated English family whose security gave him both educational opportunity and, eventually, the independence to pursue literature without needing to earn his living from it. He was the fourth son of John Thomas Bridges and Harriet Elizabeth Bridges. His father had served in the navy and later held administrative…
“We have to face the fact that this strange and meaningless invocation does not sound frigid or foolish in the poem.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Edwardian Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
