Alfred Noyes was born on 16 September 1880 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, and died on 25 June 1958 at his home on the Isle of Wight. During the first decades of the twentieth century he was among the best-known English poets in the world: a writer whose books sold widely, whose recitations drew large audiences, and whose poems entered schools, anthologies, music halls, and family memory. He was celebrated above all…
“I do not believe and never have believed in the pacifist who says that a man shall not defend himself or his country from attack or that treaties should be broken with impunity.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness
Henry John Newbolt was born on 6 June 1862 at Bilston, Staffordshire, into a clerical and professional English family whose assumptions about duty, learning, faith, service, and social order would remain visible throughout his work. He became one of the most widely known poets of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, celebrated above all for robust ballads of sailors, soldiers, schoolboys, explorers, and imperial end…
“The test of a poem is that it should be memorable.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Spirituality
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.
From the biographies
history
memory
Alfred Noyes:
wolverhampton, isle of wight, the highwayman, garnett daniels, forty singing seamen, drake: an english epic, watchers of the sky, exeter college.
Henry Newbolt:
bilston, clifton college, vitaï lampada, drake’s drum, admirals all, edwardian britain, the island race, margaret edina duckworth.
