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Better known as Simonides of Ceos, depicting the place where he was born, this was a 6th century BC Greek poet who became famous as much for his elegies as his romantic, lyrical poetry. He wrote a great deal about the fallen in great battles fought between the Greeks and the “Barbarians”, this term fitting almost any enemy who was not of ...
The story of Thomas Paine is, indeed, a curious one. He was one of the original Founding Fathers of the United States of America in the late 18th century. He was a great visionary, author of many books and pamphlets and a revolutionary thinker both in Europe and the new American States. He was feted everywhere he went as a man of ...
Comedian, singer and poet, Stanley Holloway was born in Manor Park in Essex in 1890 and was one of the most popular celebrities of the early 20th century, famous for his comic poetic monologues and radio shows. Appearing in film classics such as Brief Encounter and The Titfield Thunderbolt, he wrote and performed some of the most memorable comic poems of ...
Largely credited for laying at least part of the foundations for the modern democratic country of Greece, Solon was a politician and poet who was prominent in Athens between 638 and 558 BC. As with many of his contemporaries, there is a dearth of documentary and archaeological evidence concerning the life of this Athenian statesman who remains an influential figure in our ...
Born in 1544 in the Italian city of Sorrento, poet Torquato Tasso is perhaps most well-known for his work Jerusalem Delivered which presented a mythical account of the First Crusade. Often noted as one of the most popularly read poets in Europe, Tasso suffered from mental health problems throughout his life. His father was a famous lyric poet from noble birth and ...
Mostly known for his novels, writer Raymond Queneau was also an accomplished poet who was born in Le Havre in 1903. An only child, he was well educated and studied the classics and philosophy before going onto the Sorbonne in 1921 where he graduated in psychology and philosophy. He would, however, begin a lifelong love of mathematics, something he would increasingly ...
Miguel de Unamuno was a celebrated Spanish writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who grew up believing that he would become a Catholic priest. Falling in love with, and marrying, his childhood sweetheart put paid to that idea so Unamuno poured all his energies into writing poetry, novels and plays. His poetry though did not appear until he had ...
Kenneth Fearing was an American poet and novelist whose short life spanned the first half of the 20th century. This was a turbulent time in American history and one literary critic described Fearing as "the chief poet of the American Depression." Along with his poetry and fiction publications he was one of the founders of the long running magazine “The Partisan Review” ...
Mark Van Doren was a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer whose considerable writing output included some twenty volumes of original verse. His first collection, Spring Thunder, was not published until he was aged 30. He was also a literary critic and anthologist and one of his most celebrated pieces of work was originally called The Noble Voice, published in 1946. In it he reviewed ...
Louis Untermeyer was an American poet, anthologist and literary critic who, in 1961, was granted the honour of being the nation’s 14th Poet Laureate in recognition of his lifetime’s work. He held this post for two years despite receiving unfavourable government attention at various times during his life due to his occasional Marxist proclamations and being a contributor to such left-wing publications ...
