Richard Monckton Milnes, later Lord Houghton, was born on 19 June 1809 in London, into a family whose wealth, political standing, and Yorkshire connections gave him access to the governing and literary worlds of nineteenth-century Britain. He died on 11 August 1885 at Fryston Hall, near Pontefract in Yorkshire, the family seat that remained both a refuge and a symbol of his inherited position. During his long life he…
“No man with a sense of humour could have exposed himself to those occasionally just criticisms of the almost comic positions of some of his characters, verging on coarseness.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder
Arthur Symons was born on 28 February 1865 at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, into a household shaped by religious discipline, frequent movement, and intellectual aspiration. He was the son of the Reverend Arthur Symons, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and Mary Ann Symons. His father’s ministry required the family to move from place to place, and the boy’s childhood was therefore less rooted in one local communit…
“In this endeavour to disengage the ultimate essence, the soul, of whatever exists, literature, bowed down by so many burdens, may at last attain liberty.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, Edwardian Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder