Ebenezer Elliott was born on 17 March 1781 at Masbrough, near Rotherham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and died on 1 December 1849 at Great Houghton, near Barnsley. He became known in his own lifetime as the “Corn Law Rhymer,” a title at once admiring, limiting, and revealing. It identified him with the campaign against the laws that kept imported grain expensive and bread beyond the reach of many poor families, b…
“What is a communist? One who hath yearnings for equal division of unequal earnings: idler or bungler, or both, he is willing to fork out his penny and pocket your shilling.”
Neighbourhood:
Nature Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Anger, Sorrow, Fear
Robert Southey was born in Bristol on 12 August 1774 and died at Greta Hall, near Keswick in the Lake District, on 21 March 1843. During his lifetime he was among the most visible men of letters in Britain: a poet, historian, biographer, reviewer, editor, translator, political commentator, children’s writer, and, from 1813 until his death, Poet Laureate. Yet posterity has treated him unevenly. He is often remembered…
“Great poets have no envy; little ones are full of it. I doubt whether any man ever criticised a good poem maliciously, unless he had written a bad one himself.”
Neighbourhood:
Hymn Writers, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Irony, Wonder
