Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Josephine Preston Peabody
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850, into a family whose public achievements seemed to prescribe his future long before he could choose one for himself. His father, Thomas Stevenson, was a distinguished civil engineer and designer of lighthouses, heir to a formidable Scottish professional dynasty. His mother, Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson, came from another prominent family; her fat…
“Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
Josephine Preston Peabody, later Josephine Preston Peabody Marks, was born in New York City on 30 May 1874 and died on 4 December 1922. During her comparatively short life she became one of the most admired American poets and verse dramatists of the early twentieth century. She was praised for a voice at once musical, delicate, morally serious, and theatrically ambitious. Her poetry moved easily among childhood, myth…
“One never learns by success. Success is the plateau that one rests upon to take breath and look down from upon the straight and difficult path, but one does not climb upon a plateau.”
About 5,244 km separate Edinburgh, Scotland from New York City, New York, USA. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Robert Louis Stevenson: edinburgh, thomas stevenson, fanny van de grift osbourne, strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde, treasure island, the sea cook, an inland voyage, travels with a donkey in the cévennes. Josephine Preston Peabody: new york city, dorchester, the piper, lionel s. marks, the singing leaves, the wayfarers, radcliffe college, george santayana.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Robert Louis Stevenson: Peace, Joy, Wonder. Josephine Preston Peabody: Longing, Wonder, Spirituality.
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