On a warm August morning in 1841, in the quiet Staffordshire village of Caverswall, Robert Williams Buchanan was born on August 18. He entered a world already marked by ideological fervor and social upheaval, for his father, Robert Buchanan senior, was no ordinary parent but a passionate advocate of Robert Owen's socialist schemes, traveling the country as an itinerant lecturer preaching cooperation and radical socia…
“Actual life, independent of accessories, is the true material for poetic art.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
On a sweltering August evening in 1897, in a ramshackle laboratory in Secunderabad, India, a British army surgeon made a discovery that would save millions of lives. After dissecting his twentieth mosquito of the day, Ronald Ross finally observed what he had been seeking for years: the malarial parasite nestled within the insect's gut. That night, exhausted but exultant, he composed a poem celebrating his breakthroug…
“The mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Irony, Spirituality