The story of Conrad Potter Aiken (August 5, 1889 – August 17, 1973) reads like something from a Gothic novel, yet it is the true foundation upon which one of twentieth-century America's most psychologically complex poets built his life and work. Born into comfortable circumstances in Savannah, Georgia, Aiken seemed destined for the privileged life his family background suggested. His father, William Ford Aiken, had s…
“It is not verbal merely, nor rhythmic; for it remains in translation. It springs from the ideas themselves.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Modernist Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness
In the pantheon of twentieth-century American letters, few figures embodied as many contradictions and reconciliations as Archibald MacLeish. Born on May 7, 1892, in Glencoe, Illinois, and dying on April 20, 1982, in Boston, Massachusetts, MacLeish lived through nearly the entire span of the American century, bearing witness to two world wars, the Great Depression, the atomic age, and the cultural revolutions that re…
“The freedom of the poet is not the freedom to say anything he pleases, but the freedom to say what he must.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Dramatic Poets, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
