Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, born on 17 August 1840 at Petworth in Sussex and dead on 10 September 1922 at Newbuildings Place, his Sussex home, lived a life unusually crowded with contradiction. He was an English gentleman who became one of Victorian Britain’s most persistent critics of empire; a formal, often old-fashioned poet who sought to make verse answer political injustice; a diplomat who abandoned official service i…
“I do not love civilised humanity; and poor savage human nature seems a lost cause.”
Neighbourhood:
Irish Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
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…
“Still we may be well assured that only time can work out any sort of answer to them for us.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing