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…
“Much as we all love and admire your work, it seems to me we have not yet fully realized the unostentatious loveliness of your lyrics, as fine for lyrics as your best sonnets are for sonnets.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
James Nack, born 4 January 1809 and dead on 23 September 1879, occupies a curious and important place in the literary history of the United States. He was a poet whose reputation, during the most active years of his career, rested as much upon the apparent improbability of his achievement as upon the verse itself. Nack was deaf, and nineteenth-century readers repeatedly treated that fact as the central explanation fo…
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder