Faces of the Poets

So who were these people who wrote the words archived at Poets' Corner? What were they like?

The biographical information here is sparse, or at least it will be until someone has the time and energy to complete the "Lives of the Poets" that Nelson started. To make up for this lack, I've been accumulating images of many of the poets - paintings, sketches, photographs - even the occasional self-portrait.. Some are sprinkled amidst the text of their poems, but most are summarized here for convenience.

I think the "picture is worth a thousand words" concept applies more to prose than to poetry (good poetry, "the best words in the best order", says much with litttle), but pictures still say a great deal. While some of these images are heavily posed publicity photos or formal portraits, others are quite candid, and offer an insight as the character of the poet or at least how they were viewed in their time.

For example, every picture I have ever seen of Poe appears a little bit skewed in an appropriately unsettling way. One painting of Jonson looks as if all it would take is another beer to get him to pen another song. Pound's stare seems almost as pointed as his satire, though not as pointed as Dame Edith's facial features. Thanks to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an artist as well as a poet, we have portraits of his sister Christina as well as Swinburn and his own self-portraits. Early portraits of Wordsworth or Millay or Tennyson look almost unrelated to their portraits in later life, and some, such as Rupert Brooke, lived so briefly that their images have an almost otherworldly quality.

                --Steve

Notes:
  (NPG) indicates one or more images residing at the National Portrait Gallery Web in London