Word: tennyson
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...only took 341 years but, finally, Britain has a female Poet Laureate. Carol Ann Duffy will hold the 10-year post, following in the formidable footsteps of the likes of William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Ted Hughes. Glasgow-born Duffy, 53, said she had thought "long and hard" before accepting the high-profile job, and gave the final say to her 13-year-old daughter. Her response? "She said, 'Yes mummy, there's never been a woman.'" Now Duffy, who once said "no self-respecting poet" should have to write about royal weddings (she was referring...
...poetry, the classical languages have left an unmistakable influence on subsequent traditions. Readings of Shakespeare or Corneille or even Beckett are deeper and more complex with an understanding of the rules of Greek drama that those playwrights emulated—or conspicuously shunned. In Dante or Dryden or Tennyson, one can sense the palpable presence of Vergil. To disembody literature from the larger tradition of which the authors were knowingly partaking would appear an artificial and arbitrary extraction.Most importantly, perhaps, we owe our understanding of philosophy to the Greeks who developed it and the Latins who preserved...
...pension from King James I in 1616. John Dryden was the first to bear the official title of "laureate," which was bestowed on him in 1670. He received an honorarium of ?100 for writing birthday poems for the royal family. Since then, poets including William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson have held the post in England. Their only duty was to write poems for national occasions. Their compensation: some 60 cases of sherry per annum, for inspiration. (In 1999, the U.K. laureateship became a 10-year post with a ?5,000 stipend. Andrew Motion is the current beneficiary of both...
...popularity of Burns celebrations reflects the enduring affection for the man and his work. "After all, we don't have Wordsworth wakes, Tennyson teas or Shakespeare suppers do we?" asks Wilson. It may be less than a month since the world joined hands to bring in the New Year with Burns' song "Auld Lang Syne," but this is the night when Scots celebrate the full canon, performing to each other the spooky tale of "Tam O'Shanter," or evoking the patriotic sentiment of "Scots Wha Hae" or the tender beauty of "A Red, Red Rose." "All parts of Scottish society...
...poetry is dead, who killed it? In the 19th century it was a vital part of Western culture. Writers like Byron and Tennyson were practically rock stars. "Every newspaper in the U.S. printed poems," says Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. "At the end of Longfellow's life, his birthday was like a national holiday...