News at Eleven: [George] Crabbe himself, in a preface

to the poem, described [Peter] Grimes as a man "untouched by pity, unstung by remorse, and uncorrected by shame". Even his name evokes "crimes" and moral "griminess":

With greedy eye, he looked on all he saw,
He knew not justice and he laughed at law;
On all he marked he stretched his ready hand;
He fished by water and he filched by land."

from The Guardian: George Crabbe: The man behind Benjamin Britten

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