John Skinner, born on 3 October 1721 and dead on 16 June 1807, lived through an age of political defeat, religious repression, agricultural change, intellectual expansion, and remarkable literary revival in Scotland. He is remembered above all as the author of “Tullochgorum,” the exuberant song that Robert Burns called “the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw.” Yet that deservedly famous lyric represents only one part…
“Your acknowledgment of my poor but just encomiums on your surprising genius, and your opinion of my rhyming excursions, are both, I think, by far too high.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Hymn Writers, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Anger, Sorrow
George Crabbe was born on 24 December 1754 in Aldeburgh, a small Suffolk fishing port on the North Sea coast, and died on 3 February 1832 at Trowbridge in Wiltshire. He lived through a period of extraordinary literary and political change: the later eighteenth century’s polished, rule-conscious verse gave way to Romanticism’s exaltation of imagination, nature, and individual feeling; the French Revolution altered Eur…
“A great lie is like a great fish on dry land; it may fret and fling and make a frightful bother, but it cannot hurt you. You have only to keep still, and it will die of itself.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Spirituality
