Edward Lear was born on 12 May 1812 at Holloway, then a semi-rural northern suburb of London, and died at San Remo, Italy, on 29 January 1888. He is now cherished as one of the great makers of English literary nonsense: the author of “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Jumblies,” “The Dong with a Luminous Nose,” and hundreds of limericks populated by improbable old persons, birds, cats, Quangle Wangles, and creatures wh…
“I do not write for children, but for the child in all of us, whether he be of five, fifty, or seventy-five.”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Joy, Peace
Arthur Symons was born on 28 February 1865 at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, into a household shaped by religious discipline, frequent movement, and intellectual aspiration. He was the son of the Reverend Arthur Symons, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and Mary Ann Symons. His father’s ministry required the family to move from place to place, and the boy’s childhood was therefore less rooted in one local communit…
“To him it was an identical act of the temperament to write the sonnets of the Vowels, and to trade in ivory and frankincense with the Arabs.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, Edwardian Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder
