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…
“It is declaring against the most charming power of imagination, the most exalting force of thought, the most affecting touch of sentiment.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Nature Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Spirituality
Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset, was born on 24 January 1638 and died on 29 January 1706. Although his birth year is occasionally given incorrectly as 1643, the date generally accepted by modern biographical scholarship is 1638. He was one of the most vivid aristocratic personalities of Restoration England: a court wit, lyric poet, naval volunteer, political officeholder, patron of writers, and, in his youth,…
Neighbourhood:
Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Restoration Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
