William Watson

2 August 1858 – 11 August 1935 (~77)

2 live poems · English

William Watson was born on 2 August 1858 at Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire, and died on 11 August 1935 at Ditchling, Sussex. During his lifetime he occupied a curious and at times conspicuous place in English literary culture. He was praised as one of the finest inheritors of the Victorian poetic tradition, repeatedly mentioned as a possible Poet Laureate, admired for his disciplined music and moral seriousness, and…

“Surely the best critic is he who, neither ashamed of admiring when he can, nor afraid of reprehending when he ought, does not ask the reader to take his admiration or reprehension on trust, but vindicates both by adducing such reasons as in all ages have sufficed to demonstrate why masterpieces are masterpieces, and why failures are failures.”

Sir Thomas Wyatt

c. 1503 – 11 October 1542 (~39)

3 live poems · English

Sir Thomas Wyatt, born about 1503 and dead on 11 October 1542, stands at the beginning of the English Renaissance lyric. He was not the first English poet to write about love, loss, faith, or fortune, but he altered the sound, scale, and inwardness of English poetry. In his hands, verse became a place where private desire could collide with public danger, where a courtier could confess exhaustion without naming its c…

“Never to play upon any man's unhappiness or deformity, for that is inhuman; nor on superiors, for that is saucy and undutiful; nor on holy matters, for that is irreligious.”