(Born at Bristol, August 1st, 1774; Died at Greta Hall near Keswick, March
21st, 1843, after a residence of Thirty-Nine Years in the Lake District.)
SOUTHEY, ’t is most thy early verse I love,
Full of old lore, and musical to me
As songs of birds, or hum of humble bee;
Written before thou didst a recreant prove
To the grand cause of Human Liberty. 5
Strange that thou ever could’st degrade thy mind—
So well-inform’d, so studious and refined—
As unto Tyranny to bend the knee!
Thy industry was marvellous; thy heart
Kind to thy fellows; imagination too 10
Was fertile with thee; but thou knew not how
The feelings to control—no small part
Of the true poet’s duty: yet must we
Pay homage to thee for thy earliest poetry.
George Markham Tweddell
Robert Southey "12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843. Although his fame has been long eclipsed by that of his contemporaries and friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey's verse still enjoys some popularity. Moreover, Southey was 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.Perhaps his most enduring contribution to literary history is the children's classic The Story of the Three Bears, the original Goldilocks story, which first saw print in Southey's prose collection The Doctor." Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southey
Early Politics - Pantisocracy. He began as a Jacobin poet.
"Pantisocracy (from the Greek "πάν" and "ισοκρατία" meaning "equal or level government by/for all") was a utopian scheme devised in 1794 by the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey for an egalitarian community. They originally intended to establish such a community on the banks of the Susquehanna River in the United States, but by 1795 Southey had doubts about the viability of this and proposed moving the project to Wales. The two men were unable to agree on the location, causing the project to collapse.
Coleridge and Southey believed that contemporary society and politics were responsible for cultures of servitude and oppression. Having abandoned these corrupting influences along with personal property for a fresh start in the wilderness, the Pantisocrats hoped that men might be governed by the “dictates of rational benevolence. As spelled out by Southey, the utopian community he and Coleridge planned was to be built on two principles: "Pantisocracy" (meaning government by all) and "Aspheterism" (meaning general ownership of property). The scheme called for a small group of educated individuals to give up their possessions and labor together for the common good. Few regulations would be necessary to govern the colony and decisions would be made so as to avoid one man having more power than another. Coleridge envisioned Pantisocracy as a way to minimize the greed among men. Additionally, Coleridge and Southey hoped to enjoy a more relaxing existence than was possible in England, and expected that each member of the community would have to work just two to three hours per day to sustain the colony.
The Pantisocrats viewed their attempt as not only a search for personal domestic peace, but also as an attempt to change the status quo in England. One influence on the plan was disillusionment with the French Revolution and with the current politics of England, from which Coleridge may have sought solace through an utopian escape. Coleridge viewed the utopian scheme as an experiment that, if successful, might be gradually extended to a larger citizenship. Coleridge also hoped that through a more active, natural lifestyle he would live a healthier and more wholesome existence with his family" Read More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantisocracy
The Pantisocrats viewed their attempt as not only a search for personal domestic peace, but also as an attempt to change the status quo in England. One influence on the plan was disillusionment with the French Revolution and with the current politics of England, from which Coleridge may have sought solace through an utopian escape. Coleridge viewed the utopian scheme as an experiment that, if successful, might be gradually extended to a larger citizenship. Coleridge also hoped that through a more active, natural lifestyle he would live a healthier and more wholesome existence with his family" Read More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantisocracy
Later Politics Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southey"Although originally a radical supporter of the French Revolution, Southey followed the trajectory of fellow Romantic poets, Wordsworth and Coleridge, towards conservatism. Embraced by the Tory Establishment as Poet Laureate, and from 1807 in receipt of a yearly stipend from them, he vigorously supported the Liverpool government. He argued against parliamentary reform ("the railroad to ruin with the Devil for driver"), blamed the Peterloo Massacre on the allegedly revolutionary "rabble" killed and injured by government troops, and opposed Catholic emancipation. In 1817 he privately proposed penal transportation for those guilty of "libel" or "sedition". He had in mind figures like Thomas Jonathan Wooler and William Hone, whose prosecution he urged. Such writers were guilty, he wrote in the Quarterly Review, of "inflaming the turbulent temper of the manufacturer and disturbing the quiet attachment of the peasant to those institutions under which he and his fathers have dwelt in peace." Wooler and Hone were acquitted, but the threats caused another target,William Cobbett, to emigrate temporarily to the United States."
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