Thomas Warton

Last updated

Thomas Warton
Thomas Warton by Reynolds.jpg
Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
In office
20 April 1785 –21 May 1790
Alma mater Trinity College, Oxford
OccupationLiterary historian, critic, and poet

Thomas Warton (9 January 1728 –21 May 1790) was an English literary historian, critic, and poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1785, following the death of William Whitehead.

Contents

He is sometimes called Thomas Warton the younger to distinguish him from his father, who had the same name. His most famous poem is The Pleasures of Melancholy, a representative work of the Graveyard Poets.

Life

Warton was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, the son of poet Thomas Warton, the Elder, and younger brother of Joseph Warton and Jane Warton. As a youngster, Warton demonstrated a strong predilection toward writing poetry, a skill he would continue to develop all of his life. [1] In fact, Warton translated one of Martial's epigrams at nine and wrote The Pleasures of Melancholy at seventeen. [2]

His early education was given to him by his father at home. In March 1744, aged 16, he entered Trinity College, Oxford. He graduated from Oxford in 1747, where he subsequently became a Fellow. Warton was selected as Poet Laureate of Oxford in 1747 and again in 1748. His duty in this post was to write a poem about a selected patroness of the university, which would be read to her on a specially appointed day. [1]

A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. Left to right: James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Pasquale Paoli, Charles Burney, a servant (possibly Francis Barber), Thomas Warton, Oliver Goldsmith. (select a detail of the image for more information) JoshuaReynoldsParty.jpgDr. Samuel Johnson, authorJames Boswell, biographerSir Joshua Reynolds, hostDavid Garrick, actorEdmund Burke, statesmanPasqual Paoli, Corsican independentCharles Burney, music historianThomas Warton, poet laureateOliver Goldsmith, writerProbably The Infant Academy (1782)Puck by Joshua ReynoldsUnknown portraitServant, possibly Dr. Johnson's heirUse button to enlarge or use hyperlinks
A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. Left to right: James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Pasquale Paoli, Charles Burney, a servant (possibly Francis Barber), Thomas Warton, Oliver Goldsmith. (select a detail of the image for more information)

Warton was appointed Professor of Poetry at the university in 1757, a post that he held for ten years. [4]

In 1771, he was appointed rector of Kiddington in Oxfordshire, a post he held until his death. In 1785, he was appointed Camden Professor of History, as well as the eighth Poet Laureate.

Among other important contributions, Warton, along with his brother, was among the first to argue that Sir Thopas, by Geoffrey Chaucer, was a parody. Warton contributed to the general project of the ballad revival. He was a general supporter of the poetry of Thomas Gray—a fact that Johnson satirized in his parody "Hermit hoar, in solemn cell." Among his minor works were an edition of Theocritus, a selection of Latin and Greek inscriptions, the humorous Oxford Companion to the Guide and Guide to the Companion (1762); lives of Sir Thomas Pope and Ralph Bathurst; and an Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782). [2]

Warton gave little attention to his clerical duties, and Oxford always remained his home. He was known as a very easy and convivial as well as a very learned don, with a taste for taverns and crowds as well as dim aisles and romances.

Poetry, criticism and historical works

In a poem written in 1745 he shows the delight in Gothic churches and ruined castles which inspired much of his subsequent work in romantic revival. Most of Warton's poetry was written before the age of twenty-three, when he took his M.A. degree. [2] In 1749, he penned The Triumph of Isis, a poem in praise of Oxford and the many students who had received their education there. Published anonymously, The Triumph of Isis rebutted William Mason's Isis, an Elegy published the previous year, which was anything but flattering to Oxford. [1]

Following the success of The Triumph of Isis, Warton wrote Newmarket, a Satire, which was followed by a collection of verses. His complete poetical works were included in an anthology that was published in 1853. [5]

Although he continued to write poetry, Warton's main energies were turned to poetical reading and criticism. [2] His first major academic work was Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser , published in 1754. He is, however, best known for the three-volume The History of English Poetry (1774–81), which covered the poetry of the 11th through the 16th centuries. Although the work was criticised for its many inaccuracies, it is nonetheless considered a highly important and influential historical tome.[ citation needed ]

In 1782, he wrote The History and Antiquities of Kiddington, an early example of English local history. [6]

Various works

Warton Lectures

In 1910, Frida Mond endowed the British Academy with a fund to establish an annual Shakespeare oration or lecture, as well as an annual lecture on English poetry to be called the Warton Lecture, as a tribute to the memory of Thomas Warton as a historian of English poetry. The inaugural lectures in these series were delivered in 1911 and 1910, respectively. [7] [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund Spenser</span> English poet (1552–1599)

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and he is considered one of the great poets in the English language.

<i>The Faerie Queene</i> English epic poem by Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books I–III were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IV–VI. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 stanzas, it is one of the longest poems in the English language; it is also the work in which Spenser invented the verse form known as the Spenserian stanza. On a literal level, the poem follows several knights as a means to examine different virtues. The poem is also an allegorical work. As such, it can be read on several levels, including as praise of Queen Elizabeth I. In Spenser's "Letter of the Authors", he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in Allegorical devices", and that the aim of publishing The Faerie Queene was to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Collins (poet)</span> 18th-century English poet

William Collins was an English poet. Second in influence only to Thomas Gray, he was an important poet of the middle decades of the 18th century. His lyrical odes mark a progression from the Augustan poetry of Alexander Pope's generation and towards the imaginative ideal of the Romantic era.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1754.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Lisle Bowles</span> English priest, poet and critic (1762–1850)

William Lisle Bowles was an English priest, poet and critic.

Phineas Fletcher was an English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the Younger. He was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on 8 April 1582.

The "Graveyard Poets", also termed "Churchyard Poets", were a number of pre-Romantic poets of the 18th century characterised by their gloomy meditations on mortality, "skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms" elicited by the presence of the graveyard. Moving beyond the elegy lamenting a single death, their purpose was rarely sensationalist. As the century progressed, "graveyard" poetry increasingly expressed a feeling for the "sublime" and uncanny, and an antiquarian interest in ancient English poetic forms and folk poetry. The "graveyard poets" are often recognized as precursors of the Gothic literary genre, as well as the Romantic movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest de Sélincourt</span> British literary scholar and critic

Ernest de Sélincourt (1870–1943) was a British literary scholar and critic, the eldest son of Charles Alexandre De Sélincourt and Theodora Bruce Bendall. He is best known as an editor of William Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth. He was an Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1928 to 1933 and a Fellow of University College, Oxford. After a distinguished career at Oxford, he became a Professor of English at Birmingham. Early in his career he taught in the Ladies' Department of King's College London, where his students included Virginia Woolf.

David Lee Miller is a scholar of English Renaissance Literature. He is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. His works include The Poem's Two Bodies: The Poetics of the 1590 Faerie Queen, ; Dreams of the Burning Child: Sacrificial Sons and the Father's Witness ; three edited books; and about two dozen refereed articles that have appeared in scholarly journals such as Modern Language Quarterly, English Literary History, and Publications of the Modern Language Association. He is one of four general editors of The Collected Works of Edmund Spenser, a new scholarly edition under contract to Oxford University Press.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1747 in poetry</span> Overview of the events of 1747 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

— From Sir John Harington, A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiddington</span> Village in Oxfordshire, England

Kiddington is a village in the civil parish of Kiddington with Asterleigh, in the West Oxfordshire district, in the county of Oxfordshire, England. The village is on the River Glyme, just north of the A44 road between Woodstock and Chipping Norton, about 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Chipping Norton. In 1891 the parish had a population of 215. On 1 October 1895 the parish was abolished and nerged with Asterleigh to form "Kiddington with Asterleigh".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Palace of Pleasure (poem)</span>

The Palace of Pleasure is a poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt published in his 1801 collection Juvenilia. Written before he was even sixteen, the work was part of a long tradition of poets imitating Spenser. The Palace of Pleasure is an allegory based on Book II of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene and describes the adventure of Sir Guyon as he is taken by airy sylphs to the palace of the "Fairy Pleasure". According to Hunt the poem "endeavours to correct the vices of the age, by showing the frightful landscape that terminates the alluring path of sinful Pleasure".

George Ogle was an English author, known as a translator.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Life of Thomas Warton, the Younger Archived 14 March 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  2. 1 2 3 4 Wikisource-logo.svg One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Warton, Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 337.
  3. ↑ 'A literary party at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, D. George Thompson, published by Owen Bailey, after James William Edmund Doyle, published 1 October 1851
  4. ↑ "He was ordained and eventually served as professor of poetry at Oxford from 1757 to 1767." Warton, Thomas, 1728–90, English poet and literary historian, Bartleby.com. Accessed 9 December 2022.
  5. ↑ Willmott, Robert Aris, ed. (1853). The Poetical Works of Thomas Gray, Thomas Parnell, William Collins, Matthew Green, and Thomas Warton. London: Routledge.
  6. ↑ Warton, T. The History and Antiquities of Kiddington. 3rd edition (1815) in Google Books. Accessed 9 December 2022.
  7. ↑ "Frida Mond: A good friend to the British Academy". The British Academy.
  8. ↑ "Warton Lectures on English Poetry". The British Academy.
Court offices
Preceded by British Poet Laureate
1785–1790		Succeeded by
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.