Robert Southey To Contemplation

Robert Southey 1774- 1843

Along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, Robert Southey was one of the Lake Poets. They are so called because they lived around the Lake District in England, a bucolic area in which they associated in the early nineteenth century.

Robert Southey was born August 12, 1774 in Bristol and was educated at Westminster School, London. He was expelled from school for writing an article that condemned flogging. Later in life he became conservative and advocated harsh penalties for like liberal positions. Because of his conversion, he was dogged by Byron and Hazlitt. William Hazlitt said of Southey: " He wooed Liberty as a youthful lover, but it was perhaps more as a mistress than a bride; and he has since wedded with an elderly and not very reputable lady, called legitimacy." Lord Byron derided Southey for his odes to the king which he saw as obsequious.

In his youth Southey had planned with Coleridge to establish an egalitarian community, however they never fulfilled their project.

Southey was a writer and scholar and completed biographies of Cromwell, and Nelson among others. He wrote the children's classic The Story of the Three Bears first published in 1834.




Robert Southey died March 21, 1843 in Cumberland after a long physical and mental decline.

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Text of To Contemplation
(I can only find it on one awful site called poemhunter that has annoying audio and pop ups... too annoying to put link here. If you come across a better link with the text, please send it to me and I will include it here.)

Webliography:

Wikipedia: Robert Southey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southey

Upenn project site on Mary Shelley: Robert Southey
http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/Southey/bio.html

Category:

Education

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[Idlinfarm]

That's curious, 'The calmed spirit loves the joy of grief.' It's wonderful to know who wrote the three bears. I'll contemplate this poet. Thanks James.

[HerAeolianHarp]

Thank you for posting more of the Lake Poets.