George Crabbe was an English poet, surgeon and clergyman. He’s best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life.
The Oxen relates to a West Country legend: that, on the anniversary of Christ’s Nativity, each Christmas Day, farm animals kneel in their stalls in homage.
James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading.
