Robert Louis Stevenson As H.G. Wells once said about himself, "I don't know how it is, but whenever a famous contemporary's name is mentioned, there's a respectful hush, but when it's mine, there's a dogfight!" Although, Wells made this comment about himself; it would also be true for Stevenson as well (Stern 388). Robert Louis Stevenson was born in 1850, the midpoint of the Victorian literary period. During his childhood, Stevenson's nurse, "Cummie", read poetry to him while he was sick in bed, which was a lot due to his lack of health growing up (Monarch Notes, par. 1). This the first exposure Stevenson has to literary art, and could be his inspiration to write instead of continuing the family's successful engineering and lighthouse design business. In the Victorian period of literature, much of the poetry was based on realism, romanticism, and naturalism, which is all noticeable in Stevenson's works.
English: Photograph of author Robert Louis Stevens...
English: Photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson
English: Grave of Robert Louis Stevenson on Mt Vae...Stevenson was a great Victorian poet, which paved the roads for many Romantic poets greater than he with his tone, writing style and theme.
Stevenson's tone was common in the Victorian era, but was revolutionary and great. He wrote in a very comforting voice. All of his poems, including his death poem, are touching and sincere. Stevenson's attitude in his writings was enormous, considering what was going on at the time of his life.
Robert Louis Stevenson had a distinctive style in his writings. For example, there is a rhyme scheme somewhere in all of his poems. In Stevenson's poems, the majority of the time, the rhyme scheme is ABAB, but Stevenson does write in other schemes. This is common though for poets of this era, although, many poets, whom some feel are greater than he, "owes a clear debt to Stevenson's" (Conlon 3216). Stevenson was a minor poet, who...