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.
Christopher Smart
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Christopher Smart was born on 11 April 1722 at Fairlawne, the estate near Shipbourne in Kent where his father, Peter Smart, worked as steward to the Vane family. He died on 21 May 1771, not 1770 as has sometimes been reported, in London after a life marked by extraordinary accomplishment, recurrent distress, financial insecurity, and long periods of confinement. Few English poets of the eighteenth century have seemed…
“For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born 28 August 1749 in Frankfurt am Main and dead 22 March 1832 in Weimar, became during his own lifetime a European institution: poet, dramatist, novelist, critic, civil servant, theater director, scientific investigator, memoirist, and theorist of culture. To call him Germany’s greatest writer is conventional but not empty praise. Goethe helped give the German language a literary authori…
“Shared joy is double joy.”
About 605 km separate Shipbourne, Kent, England from Frankfurt, Germany. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Christopher Smart: fairlawne, shipbourne, peter smart, winifred griffiths smart, durham school, pembroke college, john newbery, mrs. mary midnight. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: frankfurt am main, weimar, sturm und drang, the sorrows of young werther, götz von berlichingen, anna katharina schönkopf, friederike brion, charlotte von stein.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Christopher Smart: Wonder, Tenderness, Joy. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow.
Install V2Melody
Add a home-screen icon for quicker listening in a simple app window.