William Thom was born in Aberdeen, probably in December 1798, though sources have variously placed his birth in 1798, 1799, or 1800. The uncertainty is not trivial: it reflects the precarious position from which he emerged, a position in which the lives of poor urban families were not always recorded with the precision later granted to writers of standing. He came into the world in Sinclair’s Close, near the Justice…
“If, in my song or in my saying, there appears more of egotism than enough, how can I avoid it and speak at all?”
Neighbourhood:
Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Wonder
Richard Henry Dana, born on 15 November 1787 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and dead there on 2 February 1879, belonged to the first generation of American writers who attempted to make literature in the young republic something more than a colonial echo of English models. He was a poet, critic, editor, lawyer, lecturer, and influential member of Boston’s literary world. Yet he has long occupied an unstable place in li…
“There was certainly some mistake about the time of my birth—I'm an impersonated Anachronism.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
