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.…
“It is a fallacy to suppose that experience is any the less personal because it is concerned with an event happening to someone else.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Modernist Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
On a crisp October morning in 1880, in the Scottish town of Kirkcudbright, a child was born who would grow up to capture the essence of Northern English working-class humor in verse. George Marriott Edgar entered the world on October 5th into a family already steeped in theatrical tradition, though no one could have predicted that this quiet, droll man of medium height would become one of Britain's most beloved comic…
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Joy, Tenderness