Yes, what a good topic!
Joy, which may be hijacking this thread a little, makes me think of Gerard Manley Hopkins and after him George Herbert. Two great poets, I think we'd have to say, and in my memory, neither seems unhappy - though Hopkins did stop writing verse.
I think the experience of sorrow can linger. I for instance continue to produce poems about it, long after what sorrow I've seen has passed.
Goethe was fairly happy for most of his life, though Faust II to most readers seems duller than the early Faust I. Hoelderlin was not. I do think a great poet requires compassion, which adversity can teach. Uninterrupted happiness does a less good job of that to my mind.
Wordsworth became happy. Coleridge perhaps as well? And look what happened to their art.
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