Robert Southey Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or (12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the Lake Poets along with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and England's Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 until his death in 1843. Although his fame has been eclipsed by that of Wordsworth and Coleridge, his verse still enjoys some popularity. Southey was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. The
The Feast of the Poets Apollo, which reflected a friendship between the two. The work influenced how critics viewed Romantic poetry. Hunt's interpretation of Wordsworth and Wordsworth's poetry was later picked up and developed by William Hazlitt in a review of Wordsworth's "Excursion". Hazlitt emphasised the egotistical aspects of Wordsworth's regular contemplation in his works. Hazlitt also relied on Hunt's criticism of Wordsworth preferring common people as his heroes. Hazlitt's review, grounded in Hunt's ideas, influenced John Keats's view of the "wordsworthian or egotistical sublime". Coleridge, in "Biographia Literaria", relied on Hunt's claim that Wordsworth focused on the morbid aspects of life or dwelled too