George Santayana, born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás on 16 December 1863 in Madrid and dead in Rome on 26 September 1952, was one of the most elegant and elusive figures in American intellectual life. He was a philosopher, literary critic, poet, novelist, memoirist, teacher, and aphorist; yet no single profession completely contains him. Although he spent his formative adult years at Harvard and wr…
“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, German Romantics, LGBTQ+ Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10 December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, and died there on 15 May 1886. During her lifetime she was known, if at all beyond her immediate circle, as the daughter of a prominent local family, an unusually lively correspondent, a gardener, and eventually a woman who lived with increasing privacy. After her death, she emerged as one of the most startling and essential poets in th…
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing
