Robert Southey difusor de la obra de Kirke White: “Clifton Grove”

Abstract

Trabajo que se ocupa de la figura del escritor inglés Henry Kirke White, conocido por los lectores gracias al esfuerzo de uno de los tres poetas ‘lakistas’, Robert Southey. Tras una breve referencia a la utópica comunidad que quisieron poner en marcha Coleridge y Southey, basada en el pensamiento de William Godwin y su obra An Enquiry Concerning Political justice (1793), unas breves líneas sobre Southey dan paso a uno de los casos más llamativos de precocidad en poesía, comparable en muchos aspectos a otros poetas famosos a pesar de su pronta desaparición (Thomas Chatterton, Arthur Rimbaud, Émile Nelligan, etc.). Se traduce del autor, por vez primera en castellano, uno de sus poemas más notables: “Clifton Grove: A Sketch in Verse”.

In this article I attempt to approach the figure of the English writer Henry Kirke White, well known to the readers thanks to the pursues of one the three lakist poets, namely Robert Southey. After a brief reference to the utopian community promoted by Coleridge and Southey, and based on the thought of William Godwin and his work An Enquiry Concerning Political justice (1793), I draw some brief comments on Southey followed by one of the most striking cases of precocity in poetry, parallel in many aspects to others famous poets in spite of his early death (Thomas Chatterton, Arthur Rimbaud, Émile Nelligan, etc.). I translated one of this author‘s most notable poems: “Clifton Grove: A Sketch in Verse”.