John Drinkwater, born on 1 June 1882 and dead on 25 March 1937, was one of the most visible English men of letters of the years between the First World War and the rise of high modernism. Poet, playwright, actor, theatre manager, critic, lecturer, anthologist, and autobiographer, he possessed a public versatility that can make him seem difficult to place in retrospect. He was never a modernist in the manner of T. S.…
“The question, “What is poetry?” has been answered innumerable times, often by the subtlest and clearest minds, and as many times has it been answered differently.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Modernist Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Edward Thomas was born Philip Edward Thomas on 3 March 1878 at Lambeth in south London, and died on 9 April 1917 near Arras in France, aged thirty-nine. His name now evokes a particular kind of English poetry: quiet but unsettled, exact in its descriptions of paths, trains, weather, birds, woods, and country speech, yet charged with questions of loss, belonging, choice, and mortality. His poetic career lasted scarcel…
“I had never thought of writing poetry until I was nearly forty.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets, War Poets, Welsh Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder
