Tag Archives: L.M. Montgomery

“Since when was genius found respectable?” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It’s her birthday today. I have a beautiful red-leather bound copy of The Complete Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, bought at a second-hand store. The publication date is 1882, with a foreword by Mrs. Browning herself. She died in … Continue reading

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“And now I long to try a loftier strain, the sublimer Song whose broken melodies have for so many years breathed through my soul…” — poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“He suffered excessive popularity; he has now suffered three quarters of a century of critical neglect.” – Michael Schmidt, Lives of the Poets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on this day in 1807, in Portland, Maine. He was the first … Continue reading

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“I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me–yet I sometimes long for it.” — Lord Byron

— And who is the best poet, Heron? asked Boland. — Lord Tennyson, of course, answered Heron. — O, yes, Lord Tennyson, said Nash. We have all his poetry at home in a book. At this Stephen forgot the silent … Continue reading

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“[I wish] to trace the gradual action of ordinary causes rather than exceptional.” — George Eliot

“What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory?” — Emily Dickinson I came to George Eliot late. As in, during the lifespan of this blog. I read Middlemarch (more like devoured it) in 2005, and wrote … Continue reading

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“I find that I cannot exist without poetry—without eternal poetry—” –John Keats

I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t you know. Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. – James Joyce, Ulysses Born in 1795 on this day, John Keats was orphaned at fifteen. Because his … Continue reading

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“Tennyson’s rank is too well fixed and we love him too much.” — Oscar Wilde

“He was not only a minor Virgil, he is also with Virgil as Dante saw him, a Virgil among the Shades, the saddest of all English poets.” – T.S. Eliot It’s Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birthday, born on August 6, 1809. … Continue reading

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Happy Birthday, Emily Brontë: “a solitude-loving raven, no gentle dove”

“My sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; — out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side, her mind could make an Eden. She found in the … Continue reading

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“Best be yourself, imperial, plain, and true.” – Robert Browning

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” — Robert Browning “Andrea del Sarto” It’s Robert Browning’s birthday today. “Imperial”. Spoken like a true Victorian. We had to read Robert Browning’s poem “Meeting at … Continue reading

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“Some syllables are swords.” — Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan

”I’ve always been much influenced by the 17th-century metaphysical poets like Donne, and especially Henry Vaughan.” — Philip K. Dick It’s Henry Vaughan’s birthday today. I was just thinking the other day about how I encountered certain famous writers in … Continue reading

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“For never has such soothing voice / Been to your shadowy world convey’d…” — Matthew Arnold on William Wordsworth

“I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity; the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to … Continue reading

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