Philip Bourke Marston was born in London on 13 August 1850 and died there on 13 February 1887, only thirty-six years later. His short life was shaped by an unusually concentrated mixture of literary privilege, physical disability, bereavement, emotional intensity, and artistic determination. During his lifetime he was admired by prominent writers, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, and was known in literary circle…
“I could see the tree-boughs waving in the wind, and I could see the pageant of sunset in the west, and the glimmer of a fire upon the hearth.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Bryan Waller Procter, known to generations of readers by the literary name Barry Cornwall, was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, on 21 November 1787, and died in London on 5 October 1874. He belonged to that broad, fascinating company of early nineteenth-century writers who stood close to the great Romantic generation without ever wholly entering its innermost circle. He was not a poet of Byron’s volcanic self-dramatization,…
“What teacher has ever endeavored to instil into his pupils the value of weeds or grasses, of animal or vegetable nature... the wonders of space, or of the seasons; of night, of silence?”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness