Poet, historian, political pamphleteer, and Britain’s poet laureate from 1813-1843.  He was connected with many key figures in British 19th century and was a close friend of Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864). Southey’s Luso-Hispanic corpus ranges impressively across genres: translations of medieval classics, epic poetry, travel accounts, political commentary, book reviews, and academic histories. Titles of his major works are: Amadís of Gaul, Palmerin of England… corrected… from the original Portuguese, Chronicle of the Cid, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, from the Spanish, Madoc, Roderick, Last of the Goths, The Expedition of Orsúa and the Crimes of Aguirre, A Tale of Paraguay, History of Brazil, History of the Peninsular War, “Chimalpoca.  A Monodrama Founded on an Event in the Mexican History” and  “Song of the Araucans during a Thunderstorm” both in The Annual Anthology, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Spain and Portugal, Journals of a Residence in Portugal 1800-1801, and Letters from England, by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella.

More in preparation

Sources (indicative): Diego Saglia, “Nationalist Texts and Counter-Texts: Southey’s ‘Roderick’ and the Dissensions of the Annotated Romance.”  Nineteenth Century Literature,  53, #4 (March 1999): 421-451; Kenneth Curry, Southey (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975); Geoffrey Carnall,  Robert Southey and his Age: The Development of the Conservative Mind (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960); Kenneth Curry, Southey (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975).

Posted by Karen Racine

How to cite:  To cite from this page, please use any style (Chicago, Harvard, etc). Our preferred citation form is: Karen Racine, ‘Southey, Robert (1774-1843)’, The Hispanic-Anglosphere: transnational networks, global communities (late 18^th to early 20^th centuries), project funded by the AHRC and University of Winchester in partnership with the National Trust, [https://hispanic-anglosphere.com/individuals/southey-robert-1774-1843; accessed – please add date].

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The Arts ; War and the Military; Travel and Tourism ; Press, Journalism and the Media