Robert Southey is buried in St Kentigern's Churchyard, Crosthwaite, Keswick, Cumbria,
England.
His grave is located near the north side of the tower. It was renovated
in 1961 by the Brazilian government. (Southey wrote a famous history of
Brazil.)
Grave of Southey
A monument
to him was erected inside the church and shows a white marble figure asleep, with one
hand holding a book and the other on his heart. The inscription was written by William
Wordsworth. Southey was expelled from Westminster School for
editing a magazine entitled the Flagellant and then went on to
study at Balliol College, Oxford where he became friendly with
S.T. Coleridge; together they established
their Pantisocratic Society. In 1795 he married Edith Fricker who was
the elder sister of Coleridge's wife Sara Fricker. After returning from
Spain, Southey settled in the Lake District and became one of the
Lake Poets. In 1809
he and Edith took possession of Greta Hall in Keswick after Coleridge
vacated it because he
found the atmosphere too damp. Southey and his family stayed here until his death on 21 March 1843.
Southey was a prodigious writer of both verse and prose. His best known
poems include:
The Inchape Rock,
The
Battle of Blenheim and The Holy Tree. His prose works
include the celebrated History of Brazil (1810-1819) and
History of the Peninsula War (1823-1832). In 1813 Southey
became Poet Laureate when Sir Walter Scott declined the post in
his favour, but it was a position which he found increasingly irksome.
Byron (ironically) dedicated his long satirical
poem Don Juan to Southey - which begins: 'Bob Southey! You're a
poet - poet Laureate, And representative of all the race;'. Southey
is mocked on a number of occasions in Don Juan. However, Byron also famously said of Southey that: 'The varlet was not an ill-looking knave'.
Of
the three lake poets, Southey is the least well read today. His work tends
to be competent but a little uninspired. He died of 'softening of the
brain'. See also
parody and
romanticism. |
