Laurence Binyon was born in Lancaster, England, on 10 August 1869, and died in Reading on 10 March 1943. During his lifetime he occupied an unusual and influential place in British cultural life: he was a poet, dramatist, translator, art historian, museum curator, critic, and lecturer. Yet public memory has narrowed him, often understandably, to the author of “For the Fallen,” the 1914 poem whose most famous stanza h…
“Art is not an adjunct to existence, a reduplication of the actual; it is a hint and a promise of that perfect rhythm, of that ideal life.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Peace
Alfred Austin was born on 30 May 1835 at Headingley, then a village just outside Leeds in Yorkshire, and died on 2 June 1913 at Ashford, Kent. For seventeen years, from 1896 until his death, he held the conspicuous and difficult office of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Yet his name has endured less securely than those of the poets who preceded and surrounded him. To later readers, Austin has often appeared chie…
“Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things, and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
