James Beattie, born on 25 October 1735 and dead on 18 August 1803, occupied an unusual and revealing place in eighteenth-century British culture. He was at once a Scottish professor, a poet of landscape and sensibility, a popular moral philosopher, a Christian apologist, a music lover, a man of sociable ambition, and a bereaved father whose final years were darkened by illness and loss. In his own lifetime he was fam…
“To think everything disputable is a proof of a weak mind and a captious temper.”
Neighbourhood:
Enlightenment Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Spirituality
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
