Edgar Allan Poe stands as one of the most enigmatic and influential figures in American literature, a writer whose troubled life and haunting works have captivated readers for nearly two centuries. Born Edgar Poe on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, he would live only forty years before his mysterious death on October 7, 1849, in Baltimore, Maryland. Yet in that brief span, he revolutionized multiple litera…
“It is in Music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles — the creation of supernal Beauty.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Decadent Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Mary Ann Lamb was born on 3 December 1764 in London, into a family whose modest respectability, intellectual curiosity, and later misfortunes would shape her entire life. She died on 20 May 1847, having survived nearly a decade beyond her beloved younger brother and lifelong collaborator, Charles Lamb. To many generations she was known principally as “Charles Lamb’s sister,” the anonymous or partially hidden partner…
“Do not, I conjure you, let her unhappy malady afflict you too deeply. I speak from experience and from the opportunity I have had of much observation in such cases that insane people, in the fancies they take into their heads, do not feel as one in a sane state of mind would feel under similar fancies.”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Tenderness, Longing