In the hushed apartment at 89 rue de Rome in Paris, amid the blue cigarette smoke of Tuesday evenings, a soft-spoken schoolteacher held court over the most revolutionary minds in French literature. Stéphane Mallarmé, a man who published fewer than seventy poems in his lifetime, would become one of the most influential figures in modern poetry, transforming language itself into a cathedral of suggestion and silence. H…
“Poetry is the expression, through human language restored to its essential rhythm, of the mysterious meaning in the aspects of existence; it gives authenticity to our sojourn and constitutes the sole spiritual task.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, French Symbolists, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing
Walter Savage Landor was born on 30 January 1775 at Ipsley Court, near Warwick, England, into circumstances of comfort, cultivation, and inherited expectation. His father, Walter Landor, was a physician of substantial means and social standing; his mother, Elizabeth Savage, came from a family whose name and property gave her son the middle name he would make inseparable from his literary identity. Landor’s life, whic…
“My heart beats as if it would fly to you, my own fierce creature.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
