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Blank Verse
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse". The first known use of blank verse in English was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the ''Æneid, Aeneid'' (composed ; published posthumously, 1554–1557). He may have been inspired by the Latin original since classical Latin verse did not use rhyme, or possibly he was inspired by Ancient Greek verse or the Italian language, Italian verse form of ', both of which also did not use rhyme. The play ''Arden of Faversham'' (around 1590 by an unknown author) is a notable example of End-stopping, end-stopped blank verse. In English The 1561 play ''Gorboduc (play), Gorboduc'' by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, 1st E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Norton
Thomas Norton (153210 March 1584) was an English lawyer, politician, writer of verse, and playwright. Official career Norton was born in London, the son of Thomas Norton and the former Elizabeth Merry. He was educated at Cambridge. He became a secretary to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. In 1555 he was admitted as a student at the Inner Temple. He married Margery Cranmer, the daughter of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and his wife Margarete, with whom he had no children. Margery died before 1568. In 1568, Thomas married Alice Cranmer, the daughter of Archdeacon Edmund Cranmer, the brother of the Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he did have issue. Norton served in Parliament as the representative of Gatton. In 1562 he became M.P. for Berwick, and was active in politics. He became the unofficial leader of a group of about fifty members of the House of Commons, which G. R. Elton saw as the first semi-official opposition in Parliament. He was inspired by the religious vie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' of 1888 described his "Ode to a Nightingale" as "one of the final masterpieces". Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", " Ode on a Grecian Urn", " Sleep and Poetry" and the sonnet " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Shelley's reputation fluctuated during the 20th century, but since the 1960s he has achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work. Among his bes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ''masterpiece, magnum opus'' is generally considered to be ''The Prelude'', a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "The Poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. He remains one of the most recognizable names in English poetry and was a key figure of the Romantic poets. Early life Family and education The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in what is now named Word ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romantic Poetry
Romantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Neoclassical ideas of the 18th century, and lasted approximately from 1800 to 1850.Romanticism . Academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2012-05-17. Romantic poets rebelled against the style of poetry from the eighteenth century which was based around epics, odes, satires, elegies, epistles and songs. English In early-19th-century England, the poet defined his and |
The Task (poem)
''The Task: A Poem, in Six Books'' is a poem in blank verse by William Cowper published in 1785, usually seen as his supreme achievement. Its six books are called "The Sofa", "The Timepiece", "The Garden", "The Winter Evening", "The Winter Morning Walk" and "The Winter Walk at Noon". Beginning with a mock- Miltonic passage on the origins of the sofa, it develops into a discursive meditation on the blessings of nature, the retired life, and religious faith, with attacks on slavery, blood sports, fashionable frivolity, lukewarm clergy, and French despotism among other things. Cowper's subjects are those that occur to him naturally in the course of his reflections rather than being suggested by poetic convention, and the diction throughout is, for an 18th-century poem, unusually conversational and not artificial. As the poet himself writes, Writing and publication Cowper prefaced ''The Task'' with an account of its genesis: A lady, fond of blank verse, demanded a poem of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cowper
William Cowper ( ; – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem "Yardley-Oak". After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelicalism, evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt about his salvation and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to Damnation#Christianity, eternal damnation. He recovered, and went on to write more religious hymns. His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace") led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered, and to the series of Olney Hymns. His poem "Light Shining ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Seasons (Thomson Poem)
''The Seasons'' is a series of four poems written by the Scottish author James Thomson. The first part, ''Winter'', was published in 1726, and the completed poem cycle appeared in 1730.Sambrook, 2004 The poem was extremely influential, and stimulated works by Joshua Reynolds, John Christopher Smith, Joseph Haydn, Thomas Gainsborough and J. M. W. Turner. ''The Seasons'' is also mentioned by Emily Dickinson in poem 131, "Besides the Autumn poets sing". Context Thomson was educated first at the Parish school of Southdean then at Jedburgh Grammar School and Edinburgh University where he was a member of "The Grotesques" literary club; some of his early poems were published in the Edinburgh Miscellany of 1720. Seeking a larger stage, he went to London in 1725, and became the tutor of Thomas Hamilton (who became the 7th Earl of Haddington) in Barnet. There he was able to begin ''Winter'', the first of his four ''Seasons''. Blank verse had been considered more of an interesting toy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Thomson (poet, Born 1700)
James Thomson (c. 11 September 1700 – 27 August 1748) was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for his poems '' The Seasons'' and '' The Castle of Indolence'', and for the lyrics of "Rule, Britannia!" Scotland, 1700–1725 James Thomson was born in Ednam in Roxburghshire around 11 September 1700 and baptised on 15 September. He was the fourth of nine children of Thomas Thomson and Beatrix Thomson (née Trotter). Beatrix Thomson was born in Fogo, Berwickshire and was a distant relation of the house of Hume. Thomas Thomson was the Presbyterian minister of Ednam until eight weeks after Thomson's birth, when he was admitted as minister of Southdean, where Thomson spent most of his early years. Thomson may have attended the parish school of Southdean before going to the grammar school in Jedburgh in 1712. He failed to distinguish himself there. Shiels, his earliest biographer, writes: 'far from appearing to possess a sprightly genius, homsonwas considered by his schoolmas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paradise Lost
''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The poem concerns the Bible, biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of Verse (poetry), verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's ''Aeneid'') with minor revisions throughout. It is considered to be Milton's masterpiece, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of all time. At the heart of ''Paradise Lost'' are the themes of free will and the moral consequences of disobedience. Milton seeks to "justify the ways of God to men," addressing questions of predestination, human agency, and the nature of good and evil. The poem begins in medias res, with Satan and his fallen angels cast into Hell after their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and political upheaval. It addressed the fall of man, including the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan, and God's expulsion of them from the Garden of Eden. ''Paradise Lost'' elevated Milton's reputation as one of history's greatest poets. He also served as a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. Milton achieved fame and recognition during his lifetime. His celebrated '' Areopagitica'' (1644) condemning pre-publication censorship is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. His desire for freedom extended beyond his philosophy and was reflected in his style, which included his introduction of new words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
