To read Christina Rossetti is to enter a world of exquisite tension, a realm where the sacred and the sensual wage a quiet but ferocious war. She is the poet of renunciation who wrote some of the most sensuous verse in the English language, the devout Anglo-Catholic who filled her pages with goblin fruits that drip with irresistible juice, and the reclusive Victorian spinster whose inner life was a tumultuous landsca…
“I am surprised to see the suggestion that (perhaps as a devout self-denial) I forbore to make my verse as good as I could: neither as praise nor as blame do I deserve the imputation.”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
William Hughes Mearns entered the world on September 28, 1875, in the bustling streets of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of James H. Mearns and Lelia Cora Evans. From his very first breaths in that vibrant Quaker City, young William—soon to be known simply as Hughes Mearns—seemed destined to bridge the realms of imagination and instruction. He would grow into a man who taught the world not merely how to write, b…
“Writing is an outward expression of instinctive insight that must be summoned from the vastly deep of our mysterious selves. Therefore, it cannot be taught; indeed, it cannot even be summoned; it can only be permitted.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Wonder, Fear
