Joseph Addison, born on 1 May 1672 at Milston in Wiltshire and dead on 17 June 1719 at Holland House in Kensington, was one of the central makers of modern English prose. Poet, critic, dramatist, journalist, civil servant, parliamentarian, and Whig public intellectual, he achieved an influence out of proportion to the comparatively small bulk of his writing. His greatest achievement was not a single poem or play, tho…
“A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Hymn Writers, Light Verse Poets, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder
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…
“Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
