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
Sir Aubrey de Vere, born Aubrey Hunt on 28 August 1788 and dead on 5 July 1846, was an Irish poet, dramatist, landowner, magistrate, and baronet whose life joined literary aspiration to the duties and assumptions of the Anglo-Irish governing class. He is now frequently encountered as the father of the better-known poet Aubrey Thomas de Vere, and that relationship has sometimes obscured the elder man’s own achievement…
“I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.”
Neighbourhood:
Irish Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
