Alfred Tennyson, later Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was born on 6 August 1809 at Somersby rectory in Lincolnshire, England, and died on 6 October 1892 at Lurgashall in Sussex. During his long life he became the defining poetic voice of the Victorian age: at once a public laureate who wrote for national occasions and a private, searching poet whose work returned obsessively to bereavement, desire, religious uncertainty, mem…
“An Omnipotent Creator Who could make such a painful world is to me sometimes as hard to believe in as to believe in blind matter behind everything.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Sorrow
Matthew Arnold was born on 24 December 1822 at Laleham, Middlesex, a village beside the Thames, and died suddenly on 15 April 1888 at Liverpool. He became one of the defining English voices of the Victorian age: a poet of haunting melancholy, a critic who sought standards of excellence amid cultural confusion, an educational civil servant with an unusually broad public vision, and a controversial commentator on relig…
“The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
