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…
“My stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul: little else is worth study.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Wonder
The Victorian era produced many remarkable figures who straddled the worlds of literature and public service, but few navigated this dual existence with quite the complexity of Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831-1891), better known to the literary world by his pen name Owen Meredith. Born into literary aristocracy and destined for diplomatic greatness, Lytton embodied the tensions and contradiction…
“The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing
