Probably best known for his work as a literary critic, Sir William Empson was also a gifted, though sporadic, poet in his own right. He was born in Yorkshire in 1906 and his father died when he was young, Empson being sent to public school shortly after. He was initially more interested in mathematics than in literary works, something that earned ...
Japanese poet Yosa Buson was born in 1716 in Settsu Province, during the Edo period where society was under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate. He is rightly considered one of the great poets and painters of the era, mentioned in the same breath as Issa and Basho, and his haiku have been translated into many languages including English and French. As ...
Most well-known for the part he played in the Russian Futurist movement, Velimir Khlebnikov was born in 1885 in Malye Derbety, Republic of Kalmykia. His father was head of the local authority in the lower Volga and his mother was from noble stock and the young Khlebnikov received a good education, developing an interest in mathematics at an early age. When he ...
Walther von der Vogelweide was a medieval poet and “minnesinger” who travelled around the various courts of Middle High Germany in the late 12th century. It is very likely that he had been knighted at some point for military service but this did not come with any land or material wealth. He wrote a lot of poetry which could be categorised as religious, ...
Walter Savage Landor was a controversial English writer of poetry and prose who often took to writing in Latin to attack or criticise his enemies. Mostly he got away with this ploy except when his barbs were aimed at those of equal academic status to himself who could, thus, read what was being written about them. He was a fiery character who ...
