Robert Southey
Robert Southey (* August 12 1774 in Bristol, England; † March 21, 1843 in Keswick, England) was an English poet, historian and critic. It belongs to the " Seeschule " (after the Lake District in Cumberland named) by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Life
Southey, the son of a merchant canvas, attended the Westminster School, from which he was referenced but after four years, that he left an article against the corporal punishment of students in substantiated by the journal The Flagellant appear. He studied theology at Oxford, without having as Unitarian view of a church office. At a young age Southey was extremely rebellious and an avid supporter of the French Revolution, as his 1792 poem written Joan of Arc occupied. His radical views led him to Coleridge together, and together they developed a plan to set up a commune in Pennsylvania. From this idea, however, was nothing. Together with Coleridge in 1794, he wrote the drama The Fall of Robespierre. End of 1795 Southey traveled to Portugal. The experiences of this trip seem to have dissuaded him from his radical political ideas. During this time he also wrote most of his poems still known today, such as the anti - war poem The Battle of Blenheim.
1800-1801 is Southey again in Portugal. During this time he finally transforms to the conservative Tory, which should make him an enemy image for the younger generation of romantics like Percy Bysshe Shelley and George Gordon Byron. Back in England Southey lived in Greta Hall, near Keswick in Cumberland. In the next few years he wrote mainly on the historical epic poems. He also translated numerous works including some from the French and Spanish. 1807 Southey received a government pension, and in 1813 he became the " poet laureate ", ie as the official poet laureate of the Royal House. Since 1839 unconscious as a result of paralysis, he died on 21 March 1843.
Works
- Thalaba, the Destroyer (1801 )
- Metrical Tales ( 1804)
- Madoc (1805 ), about the potential explorers of North America
- The Curse of Kehama (1810 )
- Life of Nelson ( 1813)
- Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814 )
- History of Brazil ( 1810-19 )
- History of the Peninsular was ( 1823-28 )
- * Friedrich Adolph Krummenacher ( Ed.), after the English of Robert Southey: John Wesley's life, the emergence and spread of Methodism, 2 vols, New inexpensive edition Hamburg 1841 ( 1828 edition online at Google Books)