“Go to see A Doll’s House. I have been twice and go again. It’s the…” — Ernest Dowson | V2Melody

“Go to see A Doll’s House. I have been twice and go again. It’s the finest play that has been seen for some years.”

Expressing unusual enthusiasm for Ibsen’s modern drama · Letter to Victor Plarr, early 1890s

Art
Truth

About Ernest Dowson

Ernest Dowson

2 August 1867–23 February 1900

In the fading light of Victorian England, when the certainties of empire began to crack and a fin-de-siècle weariness settled over the literary world, Ernest Christopher Dowson emerged as one of the most hauntingly beautiful voices of his generation. His brief, tragic life—spanning a mere thirty-two years from 1867 to…

More by Ernest Dowson

Poems by Ernest Dowson

More remarks by Ernest Dowson

“The other day I met Oscar & dined with him at his seaside retreat; I had some difficulty in suppressing my own sourness & attuning myself to his enormous joy in life just at this moment.”

A vivid contrast between Dowson's melancholy temperament and Oscar Wilde's renewed delight in life · Letter to Conal O'Riordan, c. 10 June 1897

“I was in a condition too lyrical even for the society of poets.”

A self-mocking explanation for avoiding a gathering of fellow writers · Letter to Victor Plarr, early 1890s

Joy
Poetry

“The subtilty, the tact of omission, the morbidezza! My Last Duchess, par exemple, is pure Henry James. I must have read it a dozen times before to-day: but I have only just appreciated the full subtilty of it. It is wonderful.”

An enthusiastic response to Browning's dramatic technique and art of implication · Letter to Arthur Moore, c. 1890