Category: Poetry
Cowper is the most important English poet of the period between Pope and the illustrious group headed by Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley, which arose out of the intellectual ferment of the European Revolution. As a reformer of poetry, who called it back from conventionality to...
Southey, no mean judge in such a matter, calls Cowper the best of English, letter-writers. If the first place is shared with him by any one it is by Byron, rather than by Gray,...
1. Chapter 1Cowper is the most important English poet of the period between Pope and the illustrious group headed by Wordsworth, Byron, and Shelley, which arose out of the intellectual ferm...
5. Chapter 5Mrs. Unwin's influence produced the Moral Satires. _The Task_ was born of a more potent inspiration. One day Mrs. Jones, the wife of a neighbouring clergyman, came into Olney to...
6. Chapter 6The task was not quite finished when the influence which had inspired it was withdrawn. Among the little mysteries and scandals of literary history is the rupture between Cowper...
2. Chapter 2The storm was over; but it had swept away a great part of Cowper's scanty fortune, and almost all his friends. At thirty-five he was stranded and desolate. He was obliged to res...
3. Chapter 3Cowper had not been two years with the Unwins when Mr. Unwin, the father, was killed by a fall from his horse; this broke up the household. But between Cowper and Mrs. Unwin an...
4. Chapter 4Since his recovery, Cowper had been looking out for what he most needed, a pleasant occupation. He tried drawing, carpentering, gardening. Of gardening he had always been fond;...
8. Chapter 8Cowper says there could not have been a happier trio on earth than Lady Hesketh, Mrs. Unwin, and himself. Nevertheless, after his removal to Weston, he again went mad, and once...