In the heart of nineteenth-century American letters stands a figure who defied easy categorization, a man who straddled two seemingly incompatible worlds with remarkable grace. Edmund Clarence Stedman, born on October 8, 1833, in Hartford, Connecticut, would become known as the "Bard of Wall Street," a sobriquet that captured both the paradox and the peculiar achievement of his life. For forty-five years, he navigate…
“The poet is a creator, not an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say in prose what can only be expressed in song.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Longing
Bryan Waller Procter, known to generations of readers by the literary name Barry Cornwall, was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, on 21 November 1787, and died in London on 5 October 1874. He belonged to that broad, fascinating company of early nineteenth-century writers who stood close to the great Romantic generation without ever wholly entering its innermost circle. He was not a poet of Byron’s volcanic self-dramatization,…
“The surrounding natures must catch a portion of it, as of a portion of the sun or air, and diffuse it in their turn.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness
