Very Short Biography – Page 2 – Interesting Literature

A Very Short Biography of Sir Thomas Wyatt

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) was one of the most accomplished English poets of the Renaissance. Writing over half a century before Shakespeare, Wyatt helped to popularise Italian verse forms, most notably the sonnet, in Tudor England. In this post we offer a very brief introduction to Sir Thomas Wyatt’s life, paying particular attention to the most interesting aspects of his career.

Born at Allingham Castle in Kent, England in 1503, Wyatt first joined the court of King Henry VIII as ‘Sewer Extraordinary’ – this, disappointingly, had nothing to do with lavatories and was instead the title for a servant who waited at table.

A Very Short Biography of Sir John Suckling

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Sir John Suckling (1609-42) was a minor poet who nevertheless made his mark on the literature of his era. In this post we offer a very brief biography of John Suckling, covering the most interesting aspects of his life and work.

John Suckling was born in 1609 in Middlesex, England; his father, Sir John Suckling, was Secretary of State under King James I and, for the last two years of his life, Comptroller of the Household of King Charles I. At the age of eighteen, Suckling inherited his father’s estate when Sir John Senior died in 1627.

A Very Short Biography of M. R. James

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Many people regard M. R. James (1862-1936) as the finest writer of ghost stories in the English language. How did he come to write such highly regarded tales? In this post we offer a very short biography of M. R. James, focusing on the most curious or eye-catching aspects of his life.

A Very Short Biography of George Herbert

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

George Herbert (1593-1633) was one of the greatest poets of the seventeenth century, one of the greatest devotional poets in the English language, and one of a group that Samuel Johnson identified as the ‘Metaphysical poets’. Yet his poems almost died with him in 1633, and it was only thanks to his friend’s sound judgment that they saw the light of day. In this post we sketch out a very brief biography of George Herbert: one of the greatest religious poets of any age.

George Herbert was born in Powys, Wales, in 1593, into a wealthy and artistically gifted family. He studied at Westminster School, being taught by Lancelot Andrewes, influential bishop and one of the masterminds on the committee which translated the King James Version of the Bible.

A Very Short Biography of Robert Browning

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Robert Browning (1812-89) is, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the most famous and widely studied poet of the Victorian era. Yet for the first two decades that he was writing, he was virtually ignored by the public. In this post we offer a very short biography of Browning, a brief introduction to his life and work, touching upon the most curious and interesting aspects.

Robert Browning was born in London in 1812. Aged 14, he wrote a poem, ‘The Dance of Death’, in which Ague, Consumption, Fever, Madness, and Pestilence compete for the title of man’s worst foe; this early poem features many of the macabre hallmarks of his later poetry, dealing with death, murder, and ugliness (physical and moral) as it so often does.