Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, born on 17 August 1840 at Petworth in Sussex and dead on 10 September 1922 at Newbuildings Place, his Sussex home, lived a life unusually crowded with contradiction. He was an English gentleman who became one of Victorian Britain’s most persistent critics of empire; a formal, often old-fashioned poet who sought to make verse answer political injustice; a diplomat who abandoned official service i…
“Then, how delightful life is in perfect liberty! Never have I felt more capable of enjoyment, of the pleasures of friendship, of the casual incidents of romance, of the continuous happiness of life at home.”
Neighbourhood:
Irish Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
William Ernest Henley was born on 23 August 1849 in Gloucester, England, and died on 11 July 1903 at Woking, Surrey. He occupies an unusual place in English literary history: widely remembered by the public for a single short poem, “Invictus,” yet far more consequential in his own age as a poet, editor, critic, journalist, dramatist, and formidable presence in literary society. Henley’s life was shaped by physical pa…
“Men were not afraid of life nor ashamed of death; and you could be heroic without a dread of clever editors, and hospitable without fear of rogues, and dutiful for no hope of illuminated scrolls.”
Neighbourhood:
Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
