I T is WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, that great coiner, who is given credit for the word. Coriolanus, one of his heroes, compares going into exile to a “lonely dragon” retreating to his lair. The Roman general was talking about a physical state: someone who was lonely was simply alone.

Then, thanks to the Romantic poets, the word took on emotional overtones. Loneliness became a condition of the soul. For William Wordsworth, who famously “wandered lonely as a cloud”, the natural world offered a reprieve from negative feelings of isolation-a host of daffodils could provide “jocund company”.