In the spring of 1863, the Victorian literary world witnessed a phenomenon that would become increasingly rare in the annals of English poetry: the overnight success of a provincial poet whose work captured both popular imagination and critical acclaim. Jean Ingelow, a banker's daughter from the Lincolnshire fens, achieved what many seasoned writers could only dream of—instant fame through a single collection of poem…
“I am glad to think I am not bound to make the world go right, but only to discover and to do, with cheerful heart, the work that God appoints.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
Arthur Hugh Clough, born in Liverpool on 1 January 1819 and dead in Florence on 13 November 1861, occupies an unusual and compelling place in nineteenth-century English poetry. He was a Victorian poet, but he often sounds impatient with the assurances conventionally associated with Victorian verse: confidence in progress, confidence in religious doctrine, confidence in moral formulas, and confidence that elevated poe…
“For poetry, like science, has its final precision; and there are expressions of poetic knowledge which can no more be rewritten than could the elements of geometry.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing
