John Keats was born in London on 31 October 1795, the first surviving child of Thomas Keats and Frances Jennings Keats. Though later admirers often imagined him as the archetypal fragile Romantic poet, set apart from ordinary life by genius and suffering, his origins were practical, urban, and socially modest. His father managed the Swan and Hoop livery stable at Moorgate, owned by Frances’s father, John Jennings. Ke…
“The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
Publius Aelius Hadrianus, known to history as Hadrian, was born on 24 January 76 and died on 10 July 138. He is remembered above all as Roman emperor from 117 to 138, builder of a great frontier wall in Britain, patron of Greek culture, architect of the Pantheon’s reconstruction, traveler across nearly every major province of the empire, and the grieving lover who raised the drowned Antinous into divine memory. Yet h…
“My little soul, wandering, charming, guest and companion of the body, into what places will you now go?”
Neighbourhood:
Ancient & Classical Poets, Classical & Ancient Poets, Death & Mortality, LGBTQ+ Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing
