George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron, born 22 January 1788 and dead on 19 April 1824, was at once a dazzling poet, a public celebrity before the modern age had fully invented celebrity, an aristocrat uneasy in his rank, an exile, a political speaker, a lover of freedom, and a man whose private conduct generated lasting pain as well as endless fascination. Known to the world as Lord Byron, he became one of the centr…
“I have a horror of debt, because I have observed that a man who does contract it becomes a rascal.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Henry David Thoreau was born on 12 July 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts, and died there on 6 May 1862, only forty-four years later. During that comparatively brief life he became, almost paradoxically, one of the most durable presences in American letters. He was a poet, essayist, lecturer, surveyor, pencil maker, teacher, abolitionist, amateur scientist, and uncommonly attentive walker. Yet these labels, though usefu…
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets, Transcendentalists
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Irony, Wonder
