Robert Cunninghame-Graham, later more commonly styled Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham of Gartmore and Finlaystone, was born in 1735 and died at Gartmore on 11 December 1797. He is remembered, if at all, by most readers for a single durable lyric, “If Doughty Deeds My Lady Please,” a poem whose compact music and courtly ardour secured it a place in Victorian anthologies and in the repertory of composers. Yet the poe…
“The greatest luxury in life is to be able to do what you like, when you like, and how you like.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Joy
Jean Elliot, often called Jane Elliot in later accounts, was born in April 1727 at Minto House in Teviotdale, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders, and died on 29 March 1805. She is remembered above all for “The Flowers of the Forest,” one of the most moving lyrics in the Scottish tradition. The apparent smallness of her surviving body of work has sometimes obscured the scale of her achievement. Elliot did not leav…
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing