John Crowe Ransom stood at the crossroads of American poetry and criticism in the twentieth century, a figure whose influence extended far beyond the elegant verses he composed. Born on April 30, 1888, in Pulaski, Tennessee, he would become the architect of a critical revolution, the mentor to some of America's finest poets, and the principal voice of a distinctly Southern literary aesthetic that sought to reconcile…
“The poet wishes to defend his object’s existence against its enemies, and the critic wishes to know what he is doing, and how.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Imagist Poets, Modernist Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Irony
John Gillespie Magee Jr., born in Shanghai, China, on 9 June 1922 and killed over Lincolnshire, England, on 11 December 1941, occupies an unusual and enduring place in twentieth-century literature. He is remembered above all for “High Flight,” the fourteen-line poem that begins, “Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,” and ends with one of the most quoted conclusions in English poetry: “Put out my hand, and tou…
“It is called High Flight and was inspired by a flight I made a few days ago.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Georgian Poets, Hymn Writers
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Spirituality
