Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was born on 20 March 43 BC at Sulmo, a prosperous town in the Apennine country east of Rome, now Sulmona in the Abruzzo region of Italy. He died in exile at Tomis on the western shore of the Black Sea, probably in AD 17 or 18. Few ancient poets have left so vivid a record of their public voice, artistic ambitions, pleasures, fears, and humiliations; yet Ovid remains, in…
“Pure chance holds sway everywhere; keep your hook in the water, for a fish will appear where you least expect it.”
Neighbourhood:
Ancient & Classical Poets, Classical & Ancient Poets, Death & Mortality, Love Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
In the fading light of Victorian England, when the certainties of empire began to crack and a fin-de-siècle weariness settled over the literary world, Ernest Christopher Dowson emerged as one of the most hauntingly beautiful voices of his generation. His brief, tragic life—spanning a mere thirty-two years from 1867 to 1900—produced poetry of such delicate melancholy and exquisite craftsmanship that it continues to ca…
“I have done nothing, seen nothing, nobody, the week. Simply sat here and otherwise, plumbing the depths of repression, in various bottomless, black pits of pessimism.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Decadent Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
