Southey, << SOW thee or SUHTH ee, >> Robert (1774-1843), was poet laureate of England from 1813 until his death. He is chiefly remembered for a few ballads, including “The Battle of Blenheim” (1798), and for his association with poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Critics consider Southey a better prose writer than poet. He wrote much history and biography, including the Life of Nelson (1813). His prose collection The Doctor (1834-1847) popularized the fairy tale “The Three Bears.” Southey also wrote long verse romances, including Thalaba, the Destroyer (1801) and The Curse of Kehama (1810). The exotic, especially Oriental, settings of these poems provided much of their appeal for Southey’s readers. These works use Muslim and Hindu myths, and influenced Percy Shelley and other poets.
Southey was born in Bristol. He and Coleridge supported ideals that had inspired the American and French revolutions. They planned with another friend, Robert Lovell, to establish a utopian community in the United States. The project failed because of a lack of financial support. Southey later became conservative and supported the English monarchy, for which he was attacked in satires by poet Lord Byron, especially “The Vision of Judgment” (1822).
