Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
The Woodberrys—or Woodburys, as various spellings of the name exist—were an old New England family who had immigrated early in the colonial period and established deep roots along Massachusetts's North Shore. Since settlement took hold in Beverly and neighboring seaport towns, the family had been native to this maritime region, and many of Woodberry's forebears were sea captains and sailors. This ancestral connection…
“The poet is the interpreter of the world to men, and the interpreter of men to themselves.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
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
They overlapped for 68 years (1863–1930).
When George Santayana was born, George Edward Woodberry was about 8.
George Santayana was about 67 when George Edward Woodberry died.
About 5,449 km separate
Beverly, Massachusetts, USA from
Madrid, Spain.
Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
George Edward Woodberry:
massachusetts, harvard college, edgar allan poe, the north shore watch, the nation, columbia university, comparative literature, philosophy.
George Santayana:
madrid, rome, harvard, william james, lucifer: a theological tragedy, a hermit of carmel, sonnets and other verses, catholic atheist.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
