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.
George Edward Woodberry
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
The Woodberrys—or Woodburys, as various spellings of the name exist—were an old New England family who had immigrated early in the colonial period and established deep roots along Massachusetts's North Shore. Since settlement took hold in Beverly and neighboring seaport towns, the family had been native to this maritime region, and many of Woodberry's forebears were sea captains and sailors. This ancestral connection…
“Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 25 May 1803 and dead in Concord, Massachusetts, on 27 April 1882, became one of the defining voices of nineteenth-century American literature. He was at once a poet, essayist, lecturer, editor, religious dissenter, and public moralist, though no single title entirely contains him. His greatest influence lay in his ability to make philosophical inquiry sound urgen…
“It is natural to believe in great men. If the companions of our childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal, it would not surprise us.”
About 26 km separate Beverly, Massachusetts, USA from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Both have ground in Massachusetts.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
George Edward Woodberry: massachusetts, harvard college, edgar allan poe, the north shore watch, the nation, columbia university, comparative literature, philosophy. Ralph Waldo Emerson: boston, concord, nature, transcendentalism, william emerson, mary moody emerson, ellen louisa tucker, lydia jackson.
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.
George Edward Woodberry: Despair, Sorrow, Longing. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Wonder, Spirituality, Peace.
Install V2Melody
Add a home-screen icon for quicker listening in a simple app window.