On a crisp September morning in 1886, in the shabby-genteel precincts of Holloway, North London, Charles Walter Stansby Williams entered a world that would never quite know what to make of him. The only son of Richard Walter Stansby Williams and Mary Wall, young Charles was born into circumstances that trembled on the edge of respectability. His father, a journalist and foreign business correspondent who wrote in Fre…
“The way of the world is to make many things one; the way of God is to make one thing many.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Joy
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on July 28, 1844, in Stratford, Essex, which has since been absorbed into the bustling expanse of Greater London. He entered the world as the eldest of what would become nine children in a prosperous, artistic, and devout High Church Anglican family. His father, Manley Hopkins, was a successful marine insurance adjuster who also served as the Hawaiian consul-general in London and dabble…
“Poetry is in fact speech only employed to carry the meaning and emotion of the poet.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing
