The life of the English poet Robert Burns can be described as destitute. His life is humble, and his death is desolate. He once described his birth this way: "A sudden cold wind of the first month / the congratulatory cry of the gulls blowing in." "In the cold wind of the first month, the sound of gulls and birds chirping in the cold wind, unexpectedly, in the middle of the miserable, can not bear to see! Before his death, Pence wrote to his good friend Thomson: "Although in the past I boasted of my independence, now the odious poverty compels me to beg you for five pounds. "A few days later, he died, at the age of 37.
Interestingly, Pence has always been known for his amorous affair in the hearts of future generations. His penchant for mercy is somewhat similar to a scene in Mark Twain's novel "Running for Governor": a group of dark-skinned children, desperately clinging to the "I" who want to run for governor. There are two kinds of fiction in the scenes in the novel, one is that these boys are used by people; the other is that the stories of the whole person who use these children are fictionalized by the author, so it is not countable; but these children under the legs of our poet Pence are bastards like fake bags, and their father is the master of these two legs in the hands of the boys. Incredibly, Pence's wife actually adopted these children in a big way, which is really a bit strange, is a foreign woman different?
Pence's mercy was certainly not when he was an unruly man. At that time, he had already relied on a self-funded book of poems to make a sensation, thus temporarily changing his fate. Prior to this, he had done a small business in the town and contracted farms, but all failed. It is impossible for him not to fail, and how can a man like him, who even has to cultivate the poetry of the field, make money in business? But no money does not mean that there is no need for love, and the poor boy Pence once proposed to the daughter of a neighbor and was categorically rejected. During this period, he has been in love and lost love, and his spirit will naturally not be too good. Fortunately, there is no invincible road, he finally became famous, but he did not cherish it well, he was both good wine and lustful, and he sang yellow songs (Scottish love songs), which made the government very unhappy, and when the government was unhappy, Pence naturally wanted to be unlucky. Of course, according to gossip, Pence annoyed the authorities mainly because of his opposition to Calvinism.
Compared with the English poet Pence in the early Romantic period, William Wordsworth can be said to be a big name. His love is a bit weird. It's easy to say, he started a "sister-brother love" while in France, fell in love with Annette de Vallon, who was four years older than her, and returned to England after she gave birth. However, Wordsworth did not return to France as scheduled, but settled down with his strangely adored sister, Dorothy Wordsworth, in a farmhouse generously given to him by his friend Raisley Calvert, and lived a secluded life of "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence and seeing the south mountain at a leisurely pace". Wordsworth later married his sister's close friend, Mary Hutchinson. Still, we always felt that his relationship with his sister was a bit unclear. For example, Dorothy once wrote in her diary that the two of them were lying side by side on the grass looking at the stars, which was quite ambiguous.
While Wordsworth lived a leisurely and secluded life in his farmhouse, he was joined not only by Dorothy, but also by two others, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, two figures to be reckoned with in English literature. When Coleridge was studying at a Christian charity school, he considered becoming a shoemaker, so he instigated a shoemaker to ask his teacher Boyer to let him go. This was, of course, an impersonal request, and the foolish shoemaker, after being scolded by Boyer, ran away in ashes. One day, Coleridge fell in love with his classmate's sister, Marry Evans, and several marriage proposals were rejected, and later he met Sarah Fricker, the elder of the Fricker family with five daughters. They married in 1795, but the marriage lasted only three months before falling apart. In the days that followed, he spent time with the Wordsworth siblings until he lived off opium.
The British essayist William Hazlett once made a big deal out of the question of Wordsworth and Coleridge's late childhood insecurity. He said of Wordsworth: "Poets are born radicals. This is the case with all the poets of the day, with one exception..." The "one" of this exception, of course, refers to Wordsworth; he is equally "angry" with Coleridge: "Ostracized by the court literati, the romantic temperament is intolerable to vulgar politicians, and our zealots are in trouble, and finally they have to turn to the unclean side with subtle sophistry as a fulcrum..."
In general, Hazlitter gives us the impression of being serious and stubborn, which is certainly true, but only in the realm of thought. In life, he was both tolerant and shy. He was knocked to the ground during a debate with a friend, but he got up and forgave the other person generously, saying: "I am a metaphysician, and everything is not harmful to me except thinking about it."
Hazellet later married Sarah Stoddart, a friend of Marri Lamb (Charles Lamb's sister). He was 29 at the time and she was 32. Stodette was a sophisticated woman who didn't love him, and she wanted to marry him for two main reasons: he was willing to give all his income to her disposal; and she realized she was 32 years old. Such a marriage could certainly predict its outcome, and in 1820 Hazlitt separated from his wife and moved to a new rental. Here, he inexplicably falls madly in love with the landlord's 19-year-old daughter, Sarah Walker, and when he loses money and energy to divorce his wife, he finds that Sarah Walker has no intention of marrying him. Mary Shelley once described his miserable condition this way: "He became so thin, his hair so messy, his cheekbones so prominent. If it weren't for his voice and smile, I wouldn't have recognized him. Fortunately, in 1824, he met a beautiful widow who was his "fan" and he was particularly lonely, so the two fell in love at first sight. If it were not for the desperate opposition of Hazelett's sons later, they would have been able to grow old in vain. But, in any case, they had a time of a lifetime. Hazlitt once wrote in a letter: "As far as I know, there is nothing happier than when your men sit at one side of the dinner table and talk, and 'female dependents' sit on the other side 'listening' and spending a night in 'pleasant silence.'" Apparently, during the days he had been with her, he had often spent many pleasant evenings like this.
The warm and romantic scene of The so-called husband and wife in Hazelitt's letter appeared repeatedly in the love life of another great English poet. He was William Blake. Blake has always made a living from engraving and printmaking, and the name of the poem is after death. He once pursued a young and beautiful girl at the age of 21, but unfortunately two years of entanglement could not be exchanged for a marriage contract. The sad Blake then bumped into good luck. He touched his neighbor's daughter as he complained. The two have such a dialogue, which is more classic, and is recorded as follows:
F: I sympathize with your situation.
M: Really?
F: Really.
M: I love you.
So the two got engaged and never separated before they died. Mrs. Black was illiterate, and Blake taught her to read and write, and even taught her to draw and carve. In their more than forty years of marriage, she never complained about anything, only once, she complained to a friend, "He was with me too little." Blake's friend Tatham told an interesting story whenever he had the inspiration to create in the middle of the night, and he would immediately get up and start creating. At the same time, he also wants to wake up his wife and let her accompany him to see him create. At this time, Mrs. Black was always interested in accompanying him. Before dying, Blake asked his wife not to turn her face sadly, and he said, "Don't move, that's it." You have always been my most beloved; I'm going to paint you down. ”
It turns out that in the world of The Hezlit and Black, there have also been stories of "raising eyebrows". Love in romantic times, really romantic enough!