Robert Browning was born on 7 May 1812 at Southampton Cottage, Camberwell, then a semi-rural district south of London, and died on 12 December 1889 in Venice. Few English poets have combined such audacity of intellect, dramatic energy, moral curiosity, and technical resourcefulness. During his lifetime he moved from the position of a puzzling, frequently mocked young writer to that of a revered elder of Victorian let…
“I am naturally earnest, in earnest about whatever thing I do, and little able to write about one thing while I think of another.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Wonder
William Cullen Bryant was born on 3 November 1794 in the rural hill town of Cummington, Massachusetts, and died in New York City on 12 June 1878. During his unusually long life, he became several things at once: one of the earliest American poets to command serious respect at home and abroad, a formidable editor whose newspaper helped shape national political opinion, a translator of Homer, a civic reformer, and a pu…
“To write fine poetry requires intellectual faculties of the highest order, and among these, not the least important, is the faculty of reason.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets, Transcendentalists
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder