Rupert Brooke is the most famous of the first generation war poets of England. He also belongs to those who are called the Georgian poets, who glorified the British empire (and England) of the early twentieth century. Brooke justified and glorified the colonial craze of England to the extent that is jingoistic and disgusting to … Read more
Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, California. His father was William Prescott Frost and mother was Isabella Moodie Frost, an immigrant from Scotland. His father died in San Francisco when he was ten, and his mother went East to Lawrence, Massachusetts, with her children, to live with their, grandfather. Frost … Read more
Geoffrey Chaucer, often referred to as the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, is considered the “father of English literature, or the “father of English poetry”. Chaucer was buried as a first English literary figure in what has since come to be called Poets’ Corner, in Westminister Abbey. Chaucer was born between the years … Read more
Gerard Manley Hopkins was among a few individual innovators whose technical experiments and new approach to poetic expression were the result of new imaginative needs; but he was virtually unknown to his generation and had no influence in the nineteenth century. The Victorians cultivated many kinds of poetry—philosophical, meditative, dramatic, patriotic, hortatory, picturesque, decorative, exhibitionist, … Read more
Ted Hughes was born Edward James Hughes in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, England. His father was William Hughes, a carpenter and a veteran of World War I. As a boy, Hughes spent much of his time fishing, hunting, and studying animals. His fascination with the cruelty and the power of the natural world inspires him to write the most famous … Read more
Thomas Gray was an English poet, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University. He was a dominant poetic figure in the mid-eighteenth century and precursor of the Romantic Movement in English poetry. Gray was born in Cornhill, London into a prosperous but unhappy home. He was the sole survivor of twelve. Some of Gray’s notable … Read more
Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Otto and Aurelia Plath. Her father, Otto, was a German immigrant and a professor of biology specializing in bees, while her mother, Aurelia, was of Austrian descent. Sylvia’s early life was marked by both joy and tragedy. Her father’s early death in 1940, … Read more
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in a conservative puritanic, New England town, Amherst, Massachusetts. The Dickinson had been a popular and influential family in the town. Emily’s grandfather had taken a leading part in founding Amherst College. Her father was a successful lawyer, a member of the Congress and a trustee and … Read more