Thomas Parnell, born in Dublin on 11 September 1679 and dead at Chester, England, on 24 October 1718, occupies a distinctive position in the literary culture of the early eighteenth century. He was an Anglo-Irish clergyman, poet, translator, essayist, and valued member of the brilliant circle that included Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Gay, and John Arbuthnot. His name is often introduced through those greater…
“I know this in mankind, that when our ambition is unable to attain its end, it is not only wearied, but exasperated too at the vanity of its labours; then we speak ill of happier studies, and, sighing, condemn the excellence which we find above our reach.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Irish Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality
Robert Browning was born on 7 May 1812 at Southampton Cottage, Camberwell, then a semi-rural district south of London, and died on 12 December 1889 in Venice. Few English poets have combined such audacity of intellect, dramatic energy, moral curiosity, and technical resourcefulness. During his lifetime he moved from the position of a puzzling, frequently mocked young writer to that of a revered elder of Victorian let…
“All you gain by travel is the discovery that you have gained nothing, and have done rightly in trusting to your innate ideas—or not rightly in distrusting them, as the case may be.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Wonder
