Giacomo Leopardi was born in Recanati, in the Marches, then part of the Papal States, on 29 June 1798, and died in Naples on 14 June 1837, only weeks before his thirty-ninth birthday. His short life produced one of the most searching bodies of poetry and prose in modern European literature. He is often introduced as Italy’s supreme poet of pessimism, and there is truth in the description, but it is insufficient if it…
“The more the world advances in knowledge, the more it advances in unhappiness.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who became Mark Twain, was born on 30 November 1835 in the tiny village of Florida, Missouri, and died on 21 April 1910 in Redding, Connecticut. Few American writers have occupied so many roles in the national imagination: printer, river pilot, prospector, newspaper correspondent, lecturer, novelist, travel writer, social critic, entrepreneur, public celebrity, and, in a less frequently emph…
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Peace, Longing
