1.
1876 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. February 24 – Première of first stage production of the poetic drama Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen with incidental music by Edvard Grieg, in Christiania, Norway. M. Moores first book of verse, The Sentimental Song Book, was published in Grand Rapids, and quickly went into a second printing. A copy fell into the hands of one James F. Ryder, Ryder sent out numerous review copies to newspapers across the country, with a cover letter filled with low key mock praise. And so Moore received national attention, following Ryders lead, contemporary reviews were amusedly negative. For instance, The Rochester Democrat wrote of Sweet Singer, that Shakespeare, could he read it, if Julia A. Moore would kindly deign to shed some of her poetry on our humble grave, we should be but too glad to go out and shoot ourselves tomorrow. Toru Dutt, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields, Verse Translations and Poems, Bhowanipur, Calcutta, B. M. J
2.
1877 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. In the annals of poetasting,1877 stands out as a historic year, so wrote William Topaz McGonagall a Scottish weaver, actor, and poet who would become comically renowned as one of the worst poets in the English language. Also this year Poetaster Julia A. Moore, following up on the renown of her first book of verse, The Sweet Singer of Michigan Salutes the Public of 1876, decided to appear before her public. She gave a reading and singing performance, with accompaniment, at a Grand Rapids, Michigan. Moore managed to interpret the jeering as criticism of the orchestra
3.
1882 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. As a great lover of British poetry, Maxwell memorized poems, the best known is Rigid Body Sings closely based on Comin Through the Rye by Robert Burns, which he apparently used to sing while accompanying himself on a guitar. It has the opening lines, Gin a body meet a body Flyin through the air. Gin a body hit a body, Will it fly, a. J. Thatcher, Australian 19th century in poetry 19th century in literature List of years in poetry List of years in literature Victorian literature French literature of the 19th century Poetry
4.
1887 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. George Frederick Cameron, Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death, sarah Anne Curzon, Laura Secord, the Heroine of 1812, A Drama, and Other Poems. The Canadian Birthday Book, poetry anthology, william Douw Lighthall, Thoughts, Moods and Ideals, Crimes of Leisure
5.
1889 in poetry
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. June 8 – English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins dies aged 54 in Dublin of typhoid, he is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, william Wilfred Campbell, Lake lyrics and other poems Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton, Acadian Legends and Lyrics, Canada Sophia Almon Hensley, Poems. James McIntyre, Poems of James McIntyre, anthologies Songs of the Great Dominion, Voices from the Forests and Waters, the Settlements and Cities of Canada. Tripathi, Lilavatijivankala, a tribute to his daughter, Indian, writing in Gujarati Verner von Heidenstam, Vallfart och vandringsår
6.
1881 in literature
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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1881. February 13 – The first issue of the feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is published by Hubertine Auclert in France, april – William Poels production of Shakespeares Hamlet at St. Georges Hall, London, reverts to the first quarto text and avoids elaborate scene changes. April 23 – Gilbert and Sullivans Patience, a satire on Oscar Wilde and aestheticism, july 29 – Law on the Freedom of the Press passed in France. August 17 – The Pushkin Prize is established by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the first of the three-volume History of Woman Suffrage, is published by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the United States, aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoys historical drama Tsar Boris receives its première, posthumously, at Anna Brenkos Pushkin Theater in Moscow. The literary review and movement La Jeune Belgique is founded by poet Max Waller, the Pali Text Society is founded by British scholar Thomas William Rhys Davids for the study of Pali texts. Dominics Mrs. G. John H. Watson first meet at Bart’s Hospital, London, prior to the events commencing on March 4 narrated in Conan Doyles A Study in Scarlet
7.
1879 in art
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Events from the year 1879 in art. April 10–May 11 – Fourth Impressionist exhibition in Paris, arranged by Gustave Caillebotte at 28 avenue de lOpéra, ford Madox Brown begins painting the The Manchester Murals in Manchester Town Hall. Chicago Academy of Fine Arts established, guimet Museum of Asian art established in Lyon, France. Museum of Fine Arts Berne established in Switzerland, kate Greenaways first book, with her own colour illustrations, Under the Window, Pictures & Rhymes for Children, is published in London
8.
1879 in architecture
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The year 1879 in architecture involved some significant events. The Linderhof Palace in Bavaria, designed by Georg Dollman is completed, st. Patricks Cathedral in New York City, designed by James Renwick, Jr. is dedicated. The Votive Church, Vienna, Austria, designed by Heinrich von Ferstel, is dedicated, Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford, Connecticut, designed by Richard M. Upjohn, is completed. Healy Hall at Georgetown University in Washington, D. C. designed by Paul J. Pelz, provident Life & Trust Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed by Frank Furness, is completed
9.
Irish poetry
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Irish poetry includes poetry in two languages, Irish and English. The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century and this culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe, the earliest examples date from the 6th century, and are generally short lyrics on themes from religion or the world of nature. They were frequently written by their authors in the margins of the illuminated manuscripts that they were copying. The best known example is Pangur Bán and it was practical for poems to be short because the Irish recognized that it was necessary to use any means necessary to make the poems lasting in their oral culture. To accomplish such a feat as well as they have, they used complicated rhyme schemes that would render a poem nonsensical if any of the key words were changed from the original version, in an oral culture, Irish poetry had many uses. A poem could be used to both the poet and the subject of the poem, oftentimes kings would commission poets to create a piece about them. Such poems would be passed on to descendants so they would remember the deeds of past generations. Kings would also commission poets to write poems of advertisement, speaking of the greatness and worthiness. Oral poetry, because it was in the vernacular, was used for entertainment. Poems that were entertaining could also be informative, teaching people lessons or offering them wisdom of experience for dealing with situations they would encounter in their everyday lives. Finally, poems, especially those featured in the sagas, were thought to be an instrument of the supernatural, Another source of early Irish poetry is the poems in the tales and sagas, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Unlike many other European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in prose, Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles and they were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicin, the Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape, the earliest of these date from the 11th century, and were probably originally compiled on a provincial basis. As a national compilation, the Metrical Dindshenchas has come down to us in two different recensions. Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland, verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as Ossianic poetry, were extremely common in Ireland and Scotland throughout this period
10.
American poetry
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Unsurprisingly, most of the early colonists work relied on contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century, a distinctive American idiom began to emerge, the history of American poetry is not easy to know. The received narrative of Modernism proposes that Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot were perhaps the most influential modernist English-language poets in the period during World War I. But this narrative leaves out African American and women poets who were published, by the 1960s, the young poets of the British Poetry Revival looked to their American contemporaries and predecessors as models for the kind of poetry they wanted to write. There are 14 such writers whom we might on that basis call American poets, early examples include a 1616 testimonial poem on the sterling warlike character of Captain John Smith and Rev. One of the first recorded poets of the British colonies was Anne Bradstreet, the poems she published during her lifetime address religious and political themes. She also wrote tender evocations of home, family life and of her love for her husband, edward Taylor wrote poems expounding Puritan virtues in a highly wrought metaphysical style that can be seen as typical of the early colonial period. This narrow focus on the Puritan ethic was, understandably, the dominant note of most of the written in the colonies during the 17th. Of course, being a Puritan minister as well as a poet, a distinctly American lyric voice of the colonial period was Phillis Wheatley, a slave whose book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773. She was one of the poets of her day, at least in the colonies. The 18th century saw an emphasis on America itself as fit subject matter for its poets. The work of Rebecca Hammond Lard, although old, still apply to life in todays world. She writes about nature, not only the nature of environment, on the whole, the development of poetry in the American colonies mirrors the development of the colonies themselves. The early poetry is dominated by the need to preserve the integrity of the Puritan ideals that created the settlement in the first place, as the colonists grew in confidence, the poetry they wrote increasingly reflected their drive towards independence. This shift in subject matter was not reflected in the mode of writing which tended to be conservative and this can be seen as a product of the physical remove at which American poets operated from the center of English-language poetic developments in London. The first significant poet of the independent United States was William Cullen Bryant, whose contribution was to write rhapsodic poems on the grandeur of prairies. Formed the Fireside Poets were a group of 19th-century American poets from New England, the poets primary subjects were the domestic life, mythology, and politics of the United States, in which several of the poets were directly involved. Other notable poets to emerge in the early and middle 19th century include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Sidney Lanier, and James Whitcomb Riley
11.
All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight
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All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight is a poem by American writer Ethel Lynn Beers. The poem was first published as The Picket Guard in the Harpers Weekly issue dated November 30,1861 and it was reprinted broadly both with that attribution and without, leading to many spurious claims of authorship. On July 4,1863, Harpers Weekly told its readers that the poem had been written for the paper by a lady contributor whom it later identified as Beers, Beers noticed that the report was followed by a small item telling of a picket being killed. She wrote the poem that morning, and she read it in September 1861. In 1863, the poem was set to music by John Hill Hewitt, himself a poet, newspaperman, and musician and this song may have inspired the title of the English translation of Erich Maria Remarques World War I novel All Quiet on the Western Front. The Picket-Guard, Harpers Weekly,1861, All quiet along the Potomac, they say, Except now and then a stray picket Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket. T is nothing—a private or two, now and then, Will not count in the news of the battle, Not an officer lost—only one of the men, Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle. All quiet along the Potomac to-night, Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming, Their tents in the rays of the autumn moon. A tremulous sigh, as the night wind Through the forest leaves softly is creeping, While stars up above, with their glittering eyes. Theres only the sound of the lone sentrys tread As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed, Far away in the cot on the mountain. His musket falls slack, his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For their mother, —may Heaven defend her. He passes the fountain, the pine tree, — The footstep is lagging and weary, Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light. Hark. was it the night wind that rustled the leaves, was it moonlight so wondrously flashing. And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing, All quiet along the Potomac to-night, — No sound save the rush of the river, While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead, — The pickets off duty forever. All Quiet Along the Potomac, and Other Poems, the Living Writers of the South. All Quiet Along the Potomac To-night, under Both Flags, A Panorama of the Great Civil War. Louisville, KY, Courier-Journal Job Printing Company, Harpers Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry. All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight, and Other Poems at archive. org
12.
Orange, New Jersey
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The City of Orange is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. Orange was originally incorporated as a township by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on November 27,1806, portions of the township were taken on April 14,1834, to form the now-defunct Clinton Township. On January 31,1860, Orange was reincorporated as a town, portions of the town were taken to form South Orange Township, Fairmount, East Orange Township and West Orange Township. On April 3,1872, Orange was reincorporated as a city, the city derives its name from William III of England or William IV, Prince of Orange. Orange is often joined with neighboring East Orange, South Orange and West Orange, Orange had its origins in Connecticuts New Haven Colony. In 1666, a group of 30 of New Havens families traveled by water to found a town on the Passayak River and they arrived on territory now encompassing Newark, the Oranges, and several other municipalities. The area was situated in the northeast portion of a land grant conveyed by King Charles II of England to his brother James, in 1664, James conveyed the land to two proprietors, Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Since Carteret had been Royal Governor of the Isle of Jersey, Orange was initially a part of the city of Newark, but it was originally known as Newark Mountains. On June 7,1780, the townspeople of Newark Mountains officially voted to adopt the name Orange, at the time, there was a significant number of people in favor of secession from Newark. However, this would not occur until November 27,1806, on April 13,1807, the first government was elected, but not until March 13,1860 was Orange officially incorporated as a city. Immediately, the new city began fragmenting into smaller communities, primarily because of disputes about the costs of establishing paid police, fire. South Orange was organized on January 26,1861, Fairmount on March 11,1862, East Orange on March 4,1863, Orange is located on the Newark and Mount-Pleasant Turnpike, the main road from Newark to Morristown, and ultimately to Easton, Pennsylvania. The town became a thoroughfare for travelers, and hotels abounded. Initially, the stagecoach was the method of transportation. Omnibuses of the Eclipse and the Morris & Newark Lines serviced Orange, the Morris and Essex Railroad arrived in Orange in November 1836, its first cars drawn by horses. On October 2,1837, the first steam locomotive appeared, the M&E later became a part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, which exists today as NJ Transits Morristown Line. Trolley cars appeared much later, with the Orange and Newark Horse Car Railroad Company running its first car up Main Street in May 1862, the Orange Crosstown Line, eventually extending from Morris Street, Orange, to Bloomfield, was started in June 1888. Eventually, all of the trolleys, and the buses that replaced them, Orange was an industrial city from the outset
13.
Theodore Watts-Dunton
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Theodore Watts-Dunton was an English critic and poet. He is often remembered as the friend and minder of Algernon Charles Swinburne, walter Theodore Watts was born at St. Ives in what was then Huntingdonshire. He added his mothers name of Dunton to his surname in 1897 and he was originally educated as a naturalist, and saw much of the East Anglian Gypsies, of whose superstitions and folk-lore he made careful study. Abandoning natural history for the law, he qualified as a solicitor and went to London, one of his clients was Swinburne, whom he befriended in 1872. He contributed regularly to the Examiner from 1874 and to the Athenaeum from 1875 until 1898 and he wrote widely for other publications and contributed several articles to the Encyclopædia Britannica, of which the most significant was that on Poetry in the ninth edition. In that article he explored the first principles of poetry and he was in later years Dante Gabriel Rossettis most intimate friend. Watts household included his sister Miranda Mason, her husband Charles, her son, Bertie and later and they also employed a live-in cook and a housemaid. Watts-Dunton married Clara Reich in 1905 and she settled into the family with ease, Watts Dunton later decided to also take in Henry Treffry Dunn who had been one of Rosettis assistants. Like Swinburne, Dunn was also prone to alcoholism, Dunn died in 1899 whilst still living with Watts-Dunton and Swinburne. It was not until 1897 that he published a volume under his own name. His erstwhile friend Whistler sent him a letter mocking his perceived aggrandisement, Theodore, it read, the book was his collection of poems called The Coming of Love, portions of which he had printed previously in periodicals. In the following year his prose romance Aylwin attained immediate success, imaginative glamour and mysticism are their prominent characteristics, and the novel in particular was credited with bringing pure romance back into public favour. He edited Borrows Lavengro and Romany Rye, in 1903 he published The Renascence of Wonder, a treatise on the romantic movement, but it was not only in his published work that Watts-Duntons influence on the literary life of his time was potent. His long and intimate association with Rossetti and Swinburne made him a figure in the world of letters. His grasp of metrical principle and of the perspective of English poetry brought him respect as a literary critic. He died at The Pines, Putney, on 6 June 1914 and he is buried at West Norwood Cemetery, where his monument is a low capped stone. A blue plaque marks his home in Putney
14.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of such as Poems and Ballads. A controversial figure at the time, Swinburne was a sado-masochist and alcoholic and was obsessed with the Middle Ages, Swinburne wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, cannibalism, sado-masochism, and anti-theism. His poems have many common motifs, such as the Ocean, Time, several historical people are featured in his poems, such as Sappho, Anactoria, Jesus and Catullus. Swinburne was born at 7 Chester Street, Grosvenor Place, London, on 5 April 1837 and he was the eldest of six children born to Captain Charles Henry Swinburne and Lady Jane Henrietta, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Ashburnham, a wealthy Northumbrian family. He grew up at East Dene in Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight, as a child, Swinburne was nervous and frail, but was also fired with nervous energy and fearlessness to the point of being reckless. He attended Eton College, where he first started writing poetry, at Eton, he won first prizes in French and Italian. He returned in May 1860, though he never received a degree, Swinburne considered Northumberland to be his native county, an emotion reflected in poems like the intensely patriotic Northumberland, Grace Darling and others. He enjoyed riding his pony across the moors through honeyed leagues of the northland border, in the period 1857–60, Swinburne became one of Lady Pauline Trevelyans intellectual circle at Wallington Hall. After his grandfathers death in 1860, he stayed with William Bell Scott in Newcastle, in 1861, Swinburne visited Menton on the French Riviera to recover from excessive use of alcohol, staying at the Villa Laurenti. From Menton, Swinburne travelled to Italy, where he journeyed extensively, in December 1862, Swinburne accompanied Scott and his guests, probably including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, on a trip to Tynemouth. At Oxford, Swinburne met several Pre-Raphaelites, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Swinburne was an alcoholic and algolagniac and highly excitable. Thereafter, he lost his youthful rebelliousness and developed into a figure of social respectability and it was said of Watts that he saved the man and killed the poet. Swinburne died at the Pines on 10 April 1909 at the age of 72 and was buried at St. Boniface Church, Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight. Common gossip of the time reported that he had a crush on the explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton. The English language is poor in rhymes, and most English poets. Swinburnes work was quite popular among undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge. T. S. Eliot read Swinburnes essays on the Shakespearean and Jonsonian dramatists in The Contemporaries of Shakespeare and The Age of Shakespeare and Swinburnes books on Shakespeare and Jonson
15.
Putney
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Putney is a district in south-west London, England in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is centred 5.1 miles south-west of Charing Cross, the area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. And thus we take leave of Putney, one of the pleasantest of the London suburbs, Putney is an ancient parish which covered 9.11 square kilometres and was until 1889 in the Hundred of Brixton in the county of Surrey. Its area has reduced by the loss of Roehampton to the south-west. In 1855 the parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Board of Works and was grouped into the Wandsworth District, in 1889 the area was removed from Surrey and became part of the County of London. The Wandsworth District became the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth in 1900, since 1965 Putney has formed part of the London Borough of Wandsworth in Greater London. The benefice of the remains a perpetual curacy whose patron is the Dean. It has a small chantry chapel removed from the east end of the south aisle, a charitable almshouse for 12 men and women, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was erected by Sir Abraham Dawes, who provided it with an endowment. Putney was also birthplace of Thomas Cromwell, made Earl of Essex by Henry VIII and of Edward Gibbon, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, died at a house on Putney Heath. At that time Putney took on Londons premier role in civil engineering, Putney had a second place of worship, for Independents and Roehampton was in the process of achieving separate parish status. The proprietors of the bridge distributed £31 per annum to watermen, and watermens widows and children, Putney in 1887 covered 9 square kilometres. Putney appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Putelei and it was noted that it did not fall into the category of local jurisdictions known as a manor, but obtained 20 shillings from the ferry or market toll at Putney belonging to the manor of Mortlake. One famous crossing at Putney was that of Cardinal Wolsey in 1529 upon his disgrace in falling out of favour with Henry VIII and on ceasing to be the holder of the Great Seal of England. As he was riding up Putney Hill he was overtaken by one of the royal chamberlains who presented him with a ring as a token of the continuance of his majestys favour. The first permanent bridge between Fulham and Putney was completed in 1729, and was the bridge to be built across the Thames in London. The ferry boat was on the side, however and the waterman. Walpole vowed that a bridge would replace the ferry, the Prince of Wales apparently was often inconvenienced by the ferry when returning from hunting in Richmond park and asked Walpole to use his influence by supporting the bridge. The bridge was a structure and lasted for 150 years
16.
English poetry
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This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life
17.
Edwin Arnold
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Sir Edwin Arnold KCIE CSI was an English poet and journalist, who is most known for his work The Light of Asia. Arnold was born at Gravesend, Kent, the son of a Sussex magistrate. One of his six children was the novelist Edwin Lester Arnold and he was educated at Kings School, Rochester, Kings College London, and University College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize for poetry in 1852. Here he received the bias towards, and gathered material for and it was, however, as a poet that he was best known to his contemporaries. The literary task which he set before him was the interpretation in English verse of the life and philosophy of the East. His chief work with this object is The Light of Asia, or The Great Renunciation and it appeared in 1879 and was an immediate success, going through numerous editions in England and America, though its permanent place in literature is quite uncertain. It is an Indian epic, dealing with the life and teaching of the Buddha. Arnolds other principal volumes of poetry were Indian Song of Songs, Pearls of the Faith, The Song Celestial, With Sadi in the Garden, Potiphars Wife, Adzuma, or The Japanese Wife, and Indian Poetry. In The Song Celestial Sir Edwin produced a poetic rendering of the sacred Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita. Sir Edwin was married three times and his first wife was Katherine Elizabeth Biddulph, of London, who died in 1864. Next he married Jennie Channing of Boston who died in 1889, in his later years Arnold resided for some time in Japan and his third wife, Tama Kurokawa, was Japanese. In Seas and Lands and Japonica he gives an interesting study of Japanese life and he was appointed CSI on the occasion of the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India in 1877 and was knighted in 1888. He was also honoured with decorations by the rulers of Japan, Persia, Turkey and he was a founder member, together with Anagarika Dharmapala, of the Mahabodhi Society of India and was a close associate of Weligama Sri Sumangala. A blue plaque unveiled in 1931 commemorates Arnold at 31 Bolton Gardens in South Kensington, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Arnold, Sir Edwin. A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, London, J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource Brooks Wright, Interpreter of Buddhism to the West, Sir Edwin Arnold, text of The Light of Asia International Vegetarian Union, Edwin Arnold
18.
Robert Bridges
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Robert Seymour Bridges, OM was Britains poet laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is the author of many well-known hymns and it was through Bridges’ efforts that Gerard Manley Hopkins achieved posthumous fame. Bridges was born in Walmer, Kent, in England, and educated at Eton College and Corpus Christi College and he went on to study medicine in London at St Bartholomews Hospital, intending to practise until the age of forty and then retire to write poetry. He practised as a casualty physician at his hospital and subsequently as a full physician to the Great Northern Hospital. He was also a physician to the Hospital for Sick Children, lung disease forced him to retire in 1882, and from that point on he devoted himself to writing and literary research. However, Bridges literary work started long before his retirement, his first collection of poems having been published in 1873. In 1884 he married Monica Waterhouse, daughter of Alfred Waterhouse R. A. and spent the rest of his life in seclusion, first at Yattendon, then at Boars Hill, Berkshire. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1900 and he was appointed Poet Laureate in 1913, the only medical graduate to have held the office. He was the father of poet Elizabeth Daryush and it embodies a distinct theory of prosody. Bridges faith underpinned much of his work, in the book Miltons Prosody, he took an empirical approach to examining Miltons use of blank verse, and developed the controversial theory that Miltons practice was essentially syllabic. He considered free verse to be too limiting, and explained his position in the essay Humdrum and Harum-Scarum and his own efforts to free verse resulted in the poems he called Neo-Miltonic Syllabics, which were collected in New Verse. His best-known poems, however, are to be found in the two volumes of Shorter Poems. He also wrote plays, with limited success, and literary criticism. Bridges poetry was printed in the first instance, and was slow in making its way beyond a comparatively small circle of his admirers. His best work is to be found in his Shorter Poems, despite being made poet laureate in 1913, Bridges was never a very well-known poet and only achieved his great popularity shortly before his death with The Testament of Beauty. However, his verse evoked response in many great British composers of the time, among those to set his poems to music were Hubert Parry, Gustav Holst and later Gerald Finzi. During the First World War, Bridges joined the group of writers assembled by Charles Masterman as part of Britains War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House, Bridges received advice from the young phonetician David Abercrombie on the reformed spelling system he was devising for the publication of his collected essays
19.
Robert Browning
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Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, Brownings early career began promisingly, but was not a success. His reputation took more than a decade to recover, during which time he moved away from the Shelleyan forms of his early period, in 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was considerably better known than himself. So started one of historys most famous literary marriages and they went to live in Italy, a country he called my university, and which features frequently in his work. By the time of her death in 1861, he had published the crucial collection Men and Women, the collection Dramatis Personae and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book followed, and made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation rests largely on the poetry he wrote in this middle period. Unusually for a poet, societies for the study of his work were founded while he was still alive, such Browning Societies remained common in Britain and the United States until the early 20th century. Brownings admirers have tended to temper their praise with reservations about the length and difficulty of his most ambitious poems, particularly The Ring and the Book. Nevertheless, they have included such eminent writers as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, among living writers, Stephen Kings The Dark Tower series and A. S. Byatts Possession refer directly to Brownings work, today Brownings critically most esteemed poems include the monologues Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea Del Sarto, and My Last Duchess. Robert Browning was born in Walworth in the parish of Camberwell, Surrey and he was baptized on 14 June 1812, at Locks Fields Independent Chapel, York Street, Walworth, the only son of Sarah Anna and Robert Browning. His father was a clerk for the Bank of England. Brownings paternal grandfather was an owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies. Brownings father had sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation. Brownings mother was the daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee in Scotland, the evidence, however, is inconclusive either way. Roberts father, a collector, amassed a library of around 6,000 books. As such, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources and his mother, to whom he was very close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brothers companion in his later years and his father encouraged his childrens interest in literature and the arts
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Edmund Gosse
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Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic. He was strictly brought up in a small Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren and his account of his childhood in the book Father and Son has been described as the first psychological biography. His friendship with the sculptor Hamo Thornycroft inspired a career as a historian of late-Victorian sculpture. His translations of Ibsen helped to promote that playwright in England and he also lectured in English literature at Cambridge. Gosse was the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes and his father was a naturalist and his mother an illustrator who published a number of books of poetry. Both were deeply committed to a small Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren and his childhood was initially happy as they spent their summers in Devon where his father was developing the ideas which gave rise to the craze for the marine aquarium. Gosse was sent to a school where he began to develop his own interests in literature. His father married in 1860 the deeply religious Quaker spinster Eliza Brightwen and he later gave an account of his childhood in the book Father and Son which has been described as the first psychological biography. At the age of 18 and working in the British Museum in London, Eliza Gosses brother George was the husband of Eliza Elder Brightwen, a naturalist and author, whose first book was published in 1890. H. Chesson, and the book with an introduction. Gosse started his career as assistant librarian at the British Museum from 1867 alongside the songwriter Theo Marzials, an early book of poetry published with a friend John Arthur Blaikie gave him an introduction to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was soon reviewing Scandinavian literature in a variety of publications and he became acquainted with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and friends with Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy and Henry James. In the meantime, he published his first solo volume of poetry, On Viol and Flute, Gosse and Robert Louis Stevenson first met while teenagers, and after 1879, when Stevenson came to London on occasion, he would stay with Gosse and his family. In 1875 Gosse became a translator at the Board of Trade, from 1884 to 1890, Gosse lectured in English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, despite his own lack of academic qualifications. Cambridge University gave him an honorary MA in 1886, and Trinity College formally admitted him as a member, by order of the Council, in 1889. He made a successful American lecture tour in 1884 and was much in demand as a speaker and on committees as well as publishing a string of works as well as poetry. He became, in the 1880s, one of the most important art dealing with sculpture with an interest spurred on by his intimate friendship with the sculptor Hamo Thornycroft. Gosse would eventually write the first history of the renaissance of late-Victorian sculpture in 1894 in a series for The Art Journal
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