Christmas Eve

English poet and playwright. He was born in London in 1812 and died in Venice in 1889. Inheriting from his father an attachment to thrift and also a facility for versification, he wrote, at only twelve years old, a volume of poems which he called UnconventionalHe published a vast body of work, among which the poems stand out. Paulina (the first to be published, in 1835), Paracelsus (1835) and Sordello (1840); the pieces Strafford (1837), Pippa Passes (1841) and A Dullness on Armory (1843). Above all, the development he gave to the technique of dramatic monologue and the poem. The Ring and the Book (1868-1869) guarantee him an important place in nineteenth-century English poetry. In 1884, the University of Edinburgh awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 1886, he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Academy.