Robert Southey

Robert Southey, English poet

Robert Southey (August 12, 1774 - March 21, 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and one of the so-called "Lake Poets". Although his fame tends to be eclipsed by that of his contemporaries such as William Wordsworth, Southey's verse enjoys enduring popularity.

He was born in Bristol to Thomas Southey and Margaret Hill and educated at Westminster School (from which he was expelled for writing a magazine article condeming flogging) and Balliol College, Oxford (of his time at Oxford Southey was later to say "All I learnt was a little swimming ... and a little boating.". After experimenting with a writing partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he published his first collection of poems in 1794. The same year, he, Coleridge and a few others discussed setting up an idealistic community in America.

"Their wants would be simple and natural; their toil need not be such as the slaves of luxury endure; where possessions were held in common, each would work for all; in their cottages the best books would have a place; literature and science, bathed anew in the invigorating stream of life and nature, could not but rise reanimated and purified. Each young man should take to himself a mild and lovely woman for his wife; it would be her part to prepare their innocent food, and tend their hardy and beautiful race."

Later itterations of the plan moved the commune to Wales, but later, Southey was the first of the group to reject the idea as unworkable.

Southey's wife, Edith, was the sister of Coleridge's wife. The Southeys set up home in the Lake District, living on a tiny income. From 1809, he contributed to the Quarterly Review, and had become so well-known by 1813 that he was appointed Poet Laureate.

In 1838, Edith died and Southey married Caroline Anne Bowles, also a poet. Many of his poems are still read by schoolchildren, the best-known being The Inchcape Rock and After Blenheim (possibly one of the earliest anti-war poems).

Major works

• Fall of Robespierre ( 1794 ).
• Joan of Arc: An Epic Poem ( 1796 )
• Poems ( 1797 - 99 )
• Letters from Spain ( 1797 )
• Devil's Thoughts ( 1799 )
• Thalaba the Destroyer ( 1801 )
• Amadis of Gaul ( 1803 ). Translation
• Madoc ( 1805 )
• Letters from England ( 1807 )
• Palmerin of England ( 1807 ). Translation.
• The Cid ( 1808 ). Translation
• The Curse of Kehama ( 1810 )
• The Life of Nelson ( 1813 ). Roderick, the Last of the Goths ( 1814 )
• Wat Tyler: A Dramatic Poem ( 1817 )
• A Vision of Judgment ( 1821 )
• Life of Cromwell ( 1821 )
• Thomas More ( 1829 )
• Cowper ( 1833 )

External links

e-texts of some of Robert Southey's works:

• Colloquies on Society (http://www.abacci.com/books/book.asp?bookID=2521)
• The Life Of Horatio Lord Nelson (http://www.abacci.com/books/book.asp?bookID=1145)

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