James Thomson, born about 11 September 1700 at Ednam in Roxburghshire and dead on 27 August 1748 at Richmond in Surrey, was among the most consequential poets of eighteenth-century Britain. A Scottish writer who made his career in London, he achieved a rare combination of popularity, literary innovation, and long afterlife. His great poem, The Seasons, led English readers away from the tightly controlled urban wit an…
“But there is no thinking of these things without breaking out into poetry; which is, by the bye, a plain and undeniable argument of their superior excellence.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Nature Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Spirituality
William Drummond of Hawthornden was born on 13 December 1585 at Hawthornden, the family estate overlooking the River Esk near Lasswade in Midlothian, and died there on 4 December 1649. He belongs among the most accomplished Scottish poets of the early seventeenth century, though his reputation has long been complicated by the apparent contradictions in his work and character. He was a Scottish laird who wrote chiefly…
“A friend is a second self.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Renaissance Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder
