Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on July 28, 1844, in Stratford, Essex, which has since been absorbed into the bustling expanse of Greater London. He entered the world as the eldest of what would become nine children in a prosperous, artistic, and devout High Church Anglican family. His father, Manley Hopkins, was a successful marine insurance adjuster who also served as the Hawaiian consul-general in London and dabble…
“Sprung rhythm is measured by feet of from one to four syllables, regularly, and the feet are either trochees or dactyls.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing
Thomas Hood was born in London on 23 May 1799 and died there on 3 May 1845, only twenty days short of his forty-sixth birthday. He occupies a distinctive, sometimes deceptively difficult place in English literary history. To generations of readers he has been the author of jokes, puns, comic ballads, and apparently effortless verbal absurdities; to others he is the compassionate author of “The Song of the Shirt” and…
“The best of friends must part.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
