About Robert Southey
Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the lake poets along with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and England's poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 untill his death in 1843. Although his fame has been eclipsed by that of Wordsworth and Coleridge, his verse still enjoys some popularity. He was born on 12 August 1774,Bristol, England. He studied at Westminster school, and at Oxford, where he found himself in perpetual conflict with the authorities on account of his independent views.
About his life :
Closely associated with Wordsworth and Coleridge is Robert Southey; and the three, on account of their residence in the Northern lake district, were referred to contemptuously as the " Lakers" by the Scottish Magazine reviewers. Southey holds his place in this group. More by personal association than by his literary gifts.For more than fifty years he labored steadily at literature, refusing to consider any other occupation. He considered himself seriously as one of the greatest writers of the day, and a reading of his ballads which connected him at once with the romantic school - leads us to think that had he written less, he might possibly have justified his own opinion of himself.
Experimenting with a writing partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, most notably in their joint composition of the Fall of Robespierre, Southey published his first collection of poems in 1794. The same year Southey, Coleridge, Robert Lovell and Several others discussed creating an idealistic community on the banks of the Susquehanna River in America. Southey was the first to reject the idea as unworkable, suggesting that they move the intended location to Wales, but when they failed to agree the plan was a banded.
Southey Married Edith Flicker at St. Mary Radcliffe, Bristol, on 14Nov, 1795. She was a sister of Sara Fricker, Coleridge's wife. In 1799 Southey and Coleridge were involved with early experiments with nitrous oxide, conducted by the Cornish Scientist Humphrey Davy. From 1809 Southey contributed to the Quarterly Review. He had become so well known by 1813 that he was appointed poet Laureate after Walter Scott refused the post.
Southey was made poet Laureate in 1813, and was the first to raise that office from the low estate into which it had fallen since the death of Dryden. The opening lines if Thalaba, beginning,
" How beautiful is night !
A dewy freshness fills the silent air, "
Are still sometimes quoted, and a few of his best known short poems like, " The Scholar" , " Auld Cloots" ," The Well of St. Keyne", " The Inchacape Rock " , and " Lodore " will repay the curious reader. The beauty of Southey's character, his patience and helpfulness, make him a worthy associate of the two greater poets with whom he is generally named.
His Works :
1. Thalaba The destroyer
2. Goldilocks and The Three Bears
3. Southey on Nelson
4. Madoe
5 . Curse of kehama
6. Chronicle of the cid
7. Roberick, the lost of the goths
8. The Minor poems of Robert Southey
9. The Inchacape Rock
10. The cataract ladore
11. Poetical works
12. Joan of Arc.
13. History of Brazil
14. The poetical works of Robert Southey
15. History of the peninsular war.
His poems.
1. The lnchacape Rock
2. After Blenheim
3. Curse of kehama
4. Thalaba the destroyer
5. Madoe
6. Joan of Arc.
His Achievements :
He was also a renewed scholar of Portuguese and Spanish literature and history, translating a number of works from those two languages into English and writing a History of Brazil and a History of the peninsular war.
Perhaps his most enduring contribution to literary history is the children's classic. The story of the Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story, first published in Southey's prose collection, The doctor. He also wrote on hospital issues, which led to a brief non sitting, spell as a Tory Member of parliament.
Some important Quotes ;
" No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded on each other's worth. "
"If you would be pungent, be brief, for it is with wordy as with sunbeams - the more they are candersed, the deeper they burn. "
" A kitten is in the animal world a rosebud is in the Garden. "
Now, let's talk about his some work,
1. The Fall of Robespierre ;
The Fall of Robespierre is a three act play written by Robert Southey and Samuel Coleridge In 1794. It follows the events in France after the downfall of Maximilien Robespierre. He is portrayed as a Tyrant, but Southey's contributions praise him as a destroyer of despotism . The play does not operate as an effetive drama for the stage, but rather as a sort of dramatic poem with each act being a different scene. According to Coleridge," My sole aim to imitate the impassioned and highly figurative develop the character of the chief actors on a vast stage of horrors.
2. Thalaba the destroyer;
Thalaba the Destroyer is an 1801 epic poem composed by Robert Southey. The origins of the poem can be traced to Southey's school boy days, but he did not begin to write the poem until he finished composing Madoc at the age of 25. Thalaba the Destroyer was completed while Southey travelled in Portugal. When the poem was finally published by the publisher Longman, it suffered from poor sales and only half of the copies were sold by 1804.
Southey uses the poem to describe various superstitions and myths, with a heavy reliance on repetition of various themes that link the myths together. Although based in Islamic theology, most of the action is mechanical instead of emphasising possible moral truths that can be drawn from the plot. Though the main character is purported to be a Muslim, the story actually takes place thousands of years before Islam, in ancient Babylon. Critics gave the work mixed reviews, with some emphasising the strong morality within the work or the quality of the poetry. However, other critics felt that the lack of a strong lyrical structure and the use of Middle Eastern myths detracted from the poem.
Now, let's talk about his criticizing work, there are some critic who give critical comments on his work;
Critical Comments;
1.The Fall of Robespierre
An anonymous review in the November 1794 Critical Review argued that the subject matter would have been appropriate for a tragedy but the events happened too soon to allow for it to be dealt with in an appropriate manner. The reviewer also commented on the haste of the work and that it "must, therefore, not be supposed to smell very strongly of the lamp.However, the review does praise aspects of the poem, as the author writes, "By these free remarks, we mean not to under-rate Mr. Coleridge's historical drama. It affords ample testimony, that the writer is a genuine votary of the Muse, and several parts of it will afford much pleasure to those who can relish the beauties of poetry. Indeed a writer who could produce so much beauty in so little time, must possess powers that are capable of raising him to a distinguished place among the English poets.In the British Critic, an anonymous reviewer argued in 1795 that "The sentiments ... in many instances are naturally, though boldly conceived, and expressed in language, which gives us reason to think the Author might, after some probation, become no unsuccessful wooer of the tragic muse.
2. Joan of Arc.
Regarding Joan of Arc, William Wordsworth wrote to William Matthews, 21 March 1796, claiming: "You were right about Southey, he is certainly a coxcomb, and has proved it completely by the preface to his Joan of Arc, an epic poem which he has just published. This preface is indeed a very conceited performance and the poem though in some passages of first-rate excellence is on the whole of very inferior execution."[13] Charles Lamb, in a 10 June 1796 letter to Coleridge, stated, "With Joan of Arc I have been delighted, amazed. I had not presumed to expect of any thing of such excellence from Southey. Why the poem is alone sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the imputation of degenerating in Poetry The subject is well chosen. It opens well On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton." Coleridge, in a 31 December 1796 letter to John Thelwall, admitted, "I entirely accord with your opinion of Southey's Joan the poem tho' it frequently reach the sentimental, does not display, the poetical, Sublime. In language at once natural, perspicuous, & dignified, in manly pathos, in soothing & sonnet-like description, and above all, in character, & dramatic dialogue, Southey is unrivalled; but as certainly he does not possess opulence of Imagination, lofty-paced Harmony, or that toil of thinking, which is necessary in order to plan a Whole.
Following this was an anonymous review for the 1796 Analytical Review that stated, "we learn with astonishment, that Joan of Arc, in its first form, in twelve books, was finished in six weeks We thought it right to mention a fact on which the author, by detailing it in the beginning of his preface, appears to lay some stress; but we wish entirely to forget it in our examination of the poem, and request our readers to do the same.
So, after his journey he died on 21March 1843 (age of 68) London, England.
Thank you.......
Written very well. Very useful for reading.
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