Mark Akenside was born on 9 November 1721 in Newcastle upon Tyne, and died in London on 23 June 1770. He was one of the most ambitious English poets of the mid-eighteenth century: a physician of substantial professional distinction, a political partisan, a learned student of philosophy and natural science, and the author of The Pleasures of Imagination, a poem that sought nothing less than to explain how the mind rec…
Compare Poets
Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Poet A
Mark Akenside
Poet B
John Sheffield
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 72%
Poems 86%
Blended 78%
Swap sides
Another related pair
John Sheffield, who became the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, lived from 8 September 1647 to 24 February 1721, though older records occasionally create uncertainty about dates because of the calendar conventions and genealogical habits of the period. He was a nobleman, naval officer, soldier, courtier, politician, patron, critic, playwright, memoirist, and poet. Such a catalogue of roles can make him seem les…
“Sauntering was the true Sultana Queen of his Majesty's affections.”
In time
Mark Akenside
John Sheffield
1647
1770
They overlapped for 1 year (1721–1721).
When Mark Akenside was born, John Sheffield was about 74.
Mark Akenside was about 0 when John Sheffield died.
On the map
About 399 km separate Newcastle upon Tyne, England from London, England. Both have ground in London.
John Sheffield
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
Mark Akenside only
John Sheffield only
From the biographies
virgil
Mark Akenside: newcastle upon tyne, the pleasures of imagination, robert dodsley, joseph addison, philip doddridge, blank verse, enlightenment, whig. John Sheffield: first duke of buckingham, naval officer, battle of solebay, order of the garter, essay on satire, an essay upon poetry, restoration england, james duke of york.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Mark Akenside
John Sheffield
1660
Education at Oxford
Emotional landscapes
Mark Akenside: Longing, Tenderness, Joy. John Sheffield: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.