Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Robert Stephen Hawker
Jane Austen
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
In the rugged landscape of Victorian Cornwall, where granite cliffs meet the tempestuous Atlantic and ancient legends whisper through the mist, there lived a man whose life embodied the very essence of romantic poetry. Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875) was not merely a poet who happened to be a clergyman, nor simply a priest who dabbled in verse. He was a singular figure whose eccentric personality, passionate dedica…
“What a life mine would be if it were all written and published in a book.”
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire, into a family whose modest circumstances, intellectual liveliness, and close emotional bonds supplied the material conditions for an extraordinary literary education. She was the seventh of eight children born to the Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. Her father was rector of the parishes of Steventon and Deane; her mother came from the…
“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
About 218 km separate Plymouth, Devon, England from Steventon, Hampshire, England. Both have ground in England.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Robert Stephen Hawker: cornwall, morwenstow, charlotte i'ans, newdigate prize, pompeii, tendrils, records of the western shore, ecclesia. Jane Austen: steventon, hampshire, cassandra austen, sense and sensibility, pride and prejudice, northanger abbey, tom lefroy, harris bigg-wither.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Robert Stephen Hawker: Spirituality, Wonder, Fear. Jane Austen: Irony, Sorrow, Longing.
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