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So who were these people who wrote the words archived at Poets' Corner?
What were they like? This page links to images of many of the poets -
paintings, sketches, photographs - and the stylized digital artwork I have
created for the collection.
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 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
Guide to Sources:
- (BL) - the British Library
- (NPG) - the National Portrait Gallery in London - an awesome resource
- (SPG) - the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington
- (SI) - The Smithsonion Institution
- (WIKI) - Wikimedia Commons
- (ZON) - Amazon
- (WUSTL) - Washington University at Saint Louis
- (BUR) - WBUR, Boston
- (FM) - Falmouth Museum, Cape Cod
- (UOA) - Atlanta University
- (NYT) - New York Times Archives
- (OHS) - Ohio Historical Society
- (NYPL) - New York Public Library
- (YUL) - Yale University Library
- (NPR) - National Public Radio
- (TNY) - The New Yorker Archives
- (NEH) - National Endowment for the Humanities
- (DPL) - Denver Public Library
- (ES) - Evening Standard (UK)
- (UMA) - University of Massachusettes Amherst Library
- (UUC) - Unitarian Universalist Church
- (UCA) - University of California Library
- (VHS) - Vinalhaven Historical Society
- (SU) - Stanford University
- (MWC) - Museum of Western Colorado
A gradual update is in process. Images with source attribution are more recent additions and are better quality.
Current status: A through J and U through Y have been processed. --Steve
- John Quincy Adams (WIKI) - painting
- Sarah Flower Adams (NPG) - pencil
- Joseph Addison (WIKI) - painting
- A. E. (George William Russell) (ZON) - painting
- Conrad Aiken (WIKI) - photograph
- Louisa May Alcott (WIKI) - photograph
- Louisa May Alcott - digital painting by SLS
- Thomas Bailey Aldrich (WIKI) - photograph
- Washington Allston (WIKI) - painting
- Matthew Arnold (NPG) - photo
- Matthew Arnold - digital painting by SLS
- W. H. Auden (NPG) - photo
- Katherine Lee Bates (FM) - Photograph
- Aphra Behn (NPG) - engraving
- Hillaire Belloc (WIKI) - photograph
- Hillaire Belloc (WIKI) - photograph
- Ambrose Bierce (WIKI) - photograph
- Ambrose Bierce (WIKI) - pencil drawing
- Laurence Binyon (NPG) - pencil
- Elizabeth Bishop (BUR) - photograph
- William Blake (NPG) - painting
- William Blake (NPG) - etching
- Louise Bogan (WUSTL)- photograph
- Robert Bridges (NPG) - photograph
- Robert Bridges - digital painting by sls
- Anne Bronte (WIKI) - painting
- Charlotte Bronte (NPG) - chalk drawing
- Rupert Brooke (NPG) - photograph
- Rupert Brooke (NPG) - photograph
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (NPG) - painting
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (NPG) - chalk drawing
- Robert Browning (NPG) - painting
- William Cullen Bryant (WUSTL) - engraving
- Robert Burns (NPG) - engraving
- Lord Byron, George Gordon (NPG) - painting
- Lord Byron, George Gordon (NPG) - engraving
- Bliss Carman (WIKI) - photograph
- Lewis Carroll (WIKI) - photograph
- Willa Cather - digital painting by SLS
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (NPG) - painting
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (NPG)
- William Cowper (NPG) - pastel drawing
- Joseph Seamon Cotter (UOA) - photograph
- Hart Crane (SI) - photograph
- Stephen Crane (NYT) - photograph
- e e cummings (WIKI) - photograph
- Richard Henry Dana (WIKI) - photograph
- Richard Henry Dana (WIKI) - drawing
- W. H. (William Henry) Davies (NPG) - photograph
- Walter De la Mare (NPG) - photograph
- Margaret Deland (WIKI) - photograph
- Margaret Deland (WIKI) - engraving
- Charles Dibdin (NPG) - painting
- Emily Dickinson (WIKI)- digital painting by SLS
- John Donne (WIKI) - painting
- Ernest Dowson (WIKI) - photograph
- William Drummond (WIKI) - painting
- John Dryden (WIKI) - painting
- Paul Laurence Dunbar (OHS)- photograph
- Paul Laurence Dunbar (OHS)- photograph
- Paul Laurence Dunbar (OHS)- digital painting by SLS
- Max Eastman (WIKI) - photograph
- George Eliot (WIKI) - pastel drawing
- George Eliot (WIKI) - pastel drawing
- George Eliot (WIKI) - photograph
- T. S. Eliot (TNY) - photograph
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (SI) - photograph
- Eugene Field (DPL) - photograph
- Edward Fitzgerald (WIKI)- digital painting by SLS
- Nora May French (WIKI) - photograph
- Robert Frost (NEH) - photograph
- Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (NPG) - photograph
- Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (NPG) - photograph
- Oliver Goldsmith (WIKI) - painting
- Robert Graves (ES) - photograph
- Thomas Gray (NPG) - painting
- Edgar Guest (WUSTL) - photograph
- Louise Imogen Guiney (WIKI) - photograph
- Louise Imogen Guiney (WIKI) - photograph
- Arthur Guiterman (UMA) - photograph
- Thomas Hardy (BL) - photograph
- Frances E. W. Harper (UUC) - photograph
- Francesw E. W. Harper (UCA) - engraving
- Bret Harte (WIKI)- digital painting by SLS
- Paul Hamilton Hayne (WIKI) - photograph
- Oliver Wendell Holmes (WIKI) - photograph
- Gerard Manley Hopkins (NPG)- digital painting by SLS
- Felicia Dorothea Hemans (WIKI) - painting
- Thomas Hood (WIKI) - painting
- A. E. Housman (NPG) - photograph
- Langston Hughes (SI) - photograph
- Jean Ingelow (WIKI) - photograph
- Jean Ingelow (WIKI) - photograph
- Helen Hunt Jackson (MWC) - photograph
- Robinson Jeffers (SU) - photograph
- Emily Pauline Johnson (WIKI) - photograph
- Ben Jonson (NPG) - painting
- James Joyce (NPG) - photograph
- John Keats - painting
- Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
- D. H. Lawrence
- C. Day Lewis
- Vachel Lindsay
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Longfellow's House, in Cambridge, MA
- Amy Lowell
- Archibald MacLeish
- Louis MacNeice
- John Manifold
- John Masefield
- Edgar Lee Masters
- Herman Melville
- Edna St. Vincent Millay - very young
Edna St. Vincent Millay
- John Milton - painting
John Milton - engraving
- Marianne Moore
- Thomas Moore - painting
- Edwin Muir
- Ogden Nash (Life) - digital painting by SLS
- Wilfred Owen
- Edgar Allen Poe - who always looks a
bit skewed somehow...
Edgar Allen Poe - engraving
- Alexander Pope - painting
- Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound - painting
- John Crow Ransom
- Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson
- W. R. Rodgers
- Christina Rossetti - portrait by her brother
Christina Rossetti - portrait by her brother
Christina Rossetti - portrait by her brother
Christina Rossetti - portrait by her brother
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti - self-portrait
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - self-portrait
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - self-portrait
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - photo by Lewis Carroll
- Muriel Rukeyser
- Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
- Sir Walter Scott - engraving
- George Santayana
- Delmore Schwartz
- William Shakespeare - painting
- Karl Shapiro
- Percy Bysshe Shelley - painting
Percy Bysshe Shelley - engraving
- Sir Philip Sidney - painting
- Edward Rowland Sill
- Dame Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Sitwell - painting
- Stephen Spender
- Wallace Stevens
- Charles Algernon Swinburn
- Charles Algernon Swinburn
Charles Algernon Swinburn
- Sara Teasdale
Sara Teasdale
- Alfred Tennyson
- Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson
- Dylan Thomas
- Dunstan Thompson
- Henry David Thoreau
- Jean Starr Untermeyer (YUL)- photograph
- Louis Untermeyer (WIKI)- photograph
- Henry Van Dyke (WIKI)- photograph
- Edward de Vere (WIKI)- painting
- Harold Vinal (VHS)- photograph
- Robert Penn Warren (WIKI)- photograph
- Walt Whitman (WIKI)- photograph
- Walt Whitman (WIKI)- photograph
- Walt Whitman (NPR)- engraving
- John Greenleaf Whittier (WIKI)- photograph
- John Hall Wheelock (WIKI)- photograph
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox (WIKI)- photograph
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox (WIKI)- photograph
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox (WIKI)- photograph
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Maurine) - digital painting by SLS
- William Carlos Williams (YUL) - photograph
- William Carlos Williams (WIKI) - digital painting by SLS
- William Wordsworth (WIKI) - chalk drawing
- Elinor Wylie (NYPL)- photograph
- Elinor Wylie (WIKI)- photograph
- Elinor Wylie (NYPL)- digital painting by SLS
- William Butler Yeats (NPG) - photograph
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