In 1797 a young brother and sister executed one of the more intriguing moves in the history of English literature: William and Dorothy Wordsworth took up residence in Alfoxden, Somersetshire, a stone's throw from Samuel Coleridge's home in Nether Stowey. The three would form the most productive liter

Lush, Organic, Rhythmic, Romantic poetry, Sensual, Sublime

Some works of art effortlessly draw the core of their subject to surface. William Blake, the great predecessor to the Romantics, understood this well. Whether in a lyrical, allegorical poem like "The Echoing Green" or in the almost futuristic engravings for "The Book of Urizen," he exemplified the ar

18th century poetry, Lyrical, Pathos, Sensual, Sublime

Love and war may be huge themes, but Sebastian Faulks approaches them from a microscopic perspective. He detects love in the minute movements of a woman's fingers; in a man's manner of crawling through trenches, he captures fear and torment. Faulks is involved in a romance with detail, charging every

Epic, Intense, Pathos, Realist fiction, Sensual, Violent

In the unceasing rush of the modern world, everything conspires to prevent meditation, awareness, or faith in anything greater than the day's events. Much of contemporary poetry reflects the confusion of accelerated lives: Language poetry presents us with our dislocated selves, while the work of Ashb

Domestic, Modernist poetry, Pathos, Sensual, Visceral