1.
1846 in poetry
–
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nations poetry or literature. May 22 – The Brontë sisters first published work, the collection Poems by Currer, Ellis and it sells just two copies in the first year. September 12 – Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning marry privately in St Marylebone Parish Church, London, departing for the continent a week later
2.
1841 in literature
–
This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1841. January – Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning is given her golden cocker spaniel Flush by writer Mary Russell Mitford, april 10 – Horace Greeley begins publication of the New-York Tribune. April 20 – Edgar Allan Poes short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue is published in Grahams Magazine, the story will be recognized as the first significant work of detective fiction. July 17 – Punch magazine is founded in London by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells, edited by Mayhew, London publisher Edward Moxon is convicted of blasphemous libel for issuing an edition of Shelleys poem Queen Mab with its atheistic passages restored. Anthony Panizzi and his staff at the British Museum Library in London devise the Ninety-One Cataloguing Rules, London Library founded in Pall Mall, London on the initiative of Thomas Carlyle. Khachatur Abovian – Wounds of Armenia W. Harrison Ainsworth – Old St. K
3.
1842 in art
–
Events from the year 1842 in art. David Roberts begins publication of Sketches in the Holy Land, richard Dadd becomes mentally ill during a tour of the Middle East and is thought to be suffering from sunstroke. Construction work resumes on Cologne Cathedral, after a gap of three centuries. William Fox Talbot receives the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society, george R. Lewis records the famous carvings at Kilpeck church, Herefordshire. Dordrechts Museum established in the Netherlands
4.
1842 in architecture
–
The year 1842 in architecture involved some significant events. March 28 - The Teatr Skarbkowski in Lviv, designed by Jan Salzmann and Ludwig Pichl, october 18 - The Walhalla memorial in Bavaria, designed by Leo von Klenze, is inaugurated. Treasury Building, designed by Robert Mills, central and east wings completed, Construction of Berry Hill, near Halifax, iglesia de la Matriz, Valparaíso, Chile, completed. Kawaiahaʻo Church, Honolulu, Hawaii, designed by Rev. Hiram Bingham, st Marys Church, Wreay, Cumberland, England, designed by Sara Losh, consecrated. Circular church of the Holy Sepulchre, Cambridge, England, restored by Anthony Salvin, andrew Jackson Downing - Cottage Residences Grand Prix de Rome, architecture, Philippe-Auguste Titeux
5.
Irish poetry
–
Irish poetry includes poetry in two languages, Irish and English. The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century and this culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe, the earliest examples date from the 6th century, and are generally short lyrics on themes from religion or the world of nature. They were frequently written by their authors in the margins of the illuminated manuscripts that they were copying. The best known example is Pangur Bán and it was practical for poems to be short because the Irish recognized that it was necessary to use any means necessary to make the poems lasting in their oral culture. To accomplish such a feat as well as they have, they used complicated rhyme schemes that would render a poem nonsensical if any of the key words were changed from the original version, in an oral culture, Irish poetry had many uses. A poem could be used to both the poet and the subject of the poem, oftentimes kings would commission poets to create a piece about them. Such poems would be passed on to descendants so they would remember the deeds of past generations. Kings would also commission poets to write poems of advertisement, speaking of the greatness and worthiness. Oral poetry, because it was in the vernacular, was used for entertainment. Poems that were entertaining could also be informative, teaching people lessons or offering them wisdom of experience for dealing with situations they would encounter in their everyday lives. Finally, poems, especially those featured in the sagas, were thought to be an instrument of the supernatural, Another source of early Irish poetry is the poems in the tales and sagas, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Unlike many other European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in prose, Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles and they were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicin, the Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape, the earliest of these date from the 11th century, and were probably originally compiled on a provincial basis. As a national compilation, the Metrical Dindshenchas has come down to us in two different recensions. Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland, verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as Ossianic poetry, were extremely common in Ireland and Scotland throughout this period
6.
William Wordsworth
–
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworths magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was known as the poem to Coleridge. Wordsworth was Britains Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850 and his sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he was close all his life, was born the following year, and the two were baptised together. Wordsworths father was a representative of James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale and, through his connections. He was frequently away from home on business, so the young William and his siblings had little involvement with him and remained distant from him until his death in 1783. However, he did encourage William in his reading, and in particular set him to commit to memory large portions of verse, including works by Milton, Shakespeare, William was also allowed to use his fathers library. William also spent time at his mothers house in Penrith, Cumberland, where he was exposed to the moors, but did not get along with his grandparents or his uncle. His hostile interactions with them distressed him to the point of contemplating suicide, Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else. It was at the school in Penrith that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, after the death of his mother, in 1778, Wordsworths father sent him to Hawkshead Grammar School in Lancashire and sent Dorothy to live with relatives in Yorkshire. She and William did not meet again for nine years. Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in The European Magazine and that same year he began attending St Johns College, Cambridge. He received his BA degree in 1791 and he returned to Hawkshead for the first two summers of his time at Cambridge, and often spent later holidays on walking tours, visiting places famous for the beauty of their landscape. In 1790 he went on a tour of Europe, during which he toured the Alps extensively, and visited nearby areas of France, Switzerland. In November 1791, Wordsworth visited Revolutionary France and became enchanted with the Republican movement and he fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who in 1792 gave birth to their daughter Caroline. Financial problems and Britains tense relations with France forced him to return to England alone the following year. The circumstances of his return and his subsequent behaviour raised doubts as to his wish to marry Annette. With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy visited Annette, the purpose of the visit was to prepare Annette for the fact of his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson
7.
Benjamin Haydon
–
Benjamin Robert Haydon was an English painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactless dealings with patrons and he was troubled by financial problems throughout his life, which led to several periods of imprisonment for debt. He gave lectures on art, and kept extensive diaries that were published after his death, at an early age he showed an aptitude for study, which was carefully fostered by his mother. At the age of six he was placed in Plymouth Grammar School, and at twelve in Plympton Grammar School, reading Albinus inspired him with a love for anatomy, and from childhood he wanted to become a painter. Full of energy and hope, he left home, on 14 May 1804, for London and he was so enthusiastic that Henry Fuseli asked when he found time to eat. In 1807, at the age of 21, Haydon exhibited, for the first time, the painting he entered, The Repose in Egypt, was bought by Thomas Hope a year later for the Egyptian Room at his townhouse in Duchess Street. This was a start for Haydon, who shortly afterwards received a commission from Lord Mulgrave. That same year, he took on his first pupil, Charles Lock Eastlake, Haydon was fascinated by the Elgin Marbles, and believed that they provided evidence that ancient Greek artists had studied anatomy. The income was not enough to pay off all his debts, much of what he saw there disappointed him, he described Raphaels Transfiguration, a painting he had particularly wanted to see, as small & insignificant. On returning to England, he produced Christs Entry into Jerusalem, while painting another large work, the Resurrection of Lazarus, his financial problems increased, and he was arrested but not imprisoned, the sheriff-officer taking his word for his appearance. In October,1821, he increased his commitments when he married Mary Hyman, in 1823 Haydon spent two months imprisoned for debt in the Kings Bench Prison, where he received consoling letters from leading men of the day. While there, he drew up a petition to Parliament in favour of the appointment of a committee to inquire into the state of encouragement of historical painting, which was presented by Lord Brougham. During 1825, following an agreement for his support with his lawyer, Thomas Kearsey, Haydon turned, rather unwillingly, to portrait painting. His works in the genre were, however, attacked in a review in Theodore Hooks weekly newspaper John Bull. Haydon later blamed the article for his loss of clientele, following a second period of incarceration at the Kings Bench Prison in 1827, he painted the Mock Election inspired by an incident he had witnessed there. The picture was bought by King George IV for £500, encouraged by this success, he painted a companion picture, Chairing the Member, returning to the prison to make drawings of some of the inmates. A third painting of contemporary life showed the audience at a Punch and his hopes that the king would buy this work were disappointed, a setback he blamed on the actions of the Keeper of the Kings Pictures, William Seguier. Curtius Leaping into the Gulf, and Uriel and Satan, as a supporter of parliamentary reform, he had the idea of painting a grand canvas of a meeting on Newhall Hill, addressed by Thomas Attwood, leader of the Birmingham Political Union
8.
The Poets and Poetry of America
–
The Poets and Poetry of America was a popular anthology of American poetry collected by American literary critic and editor Rufus Wilmot Griswold. It was first published in 1842 and went into several editions throughout the 19th century, Rufus Griswold had begun work as a critic working for the New York Tribune and Philadelphias Daily Standard and earned his reputation as a vindictive and savage literary critic. He was also a proponent of American poetry and he claimed to have read every American poem published before 1850—an estimated 500 volumes. Publisher Evert Augustus Duyckinck noted that the thought seems to have entered and his anthology was part of his ongoing efforts to promote distinctly American poetry. Philadelphia publishers Carey & Hart wrote to Griswold in New York on April 18,1842, the anthology was 476 pages and collected poems from over 80 authors, including 17 by Lydia Sigourney, three by Edgar Allan Poe, and 45 by Charles Fenno Hoffman. It gave prominent space to some of the most popular poets of the day, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the collection was dedicated to Washington Allston. The book proved popular enough that it went through three editions within only six months, a minor poet from Virginia named Daniel Bryan wrote of his disbelief at the rapidity with which the book went into new editions. Is there not some of the trickery of trade in this. —What was the am of the 1st edition—and may not the 2nd ed. have been printed at the time the 1st was. After Griswolds death, Richard Henry Stoddard revised the book and issued several new editions later in the 19th century, the Poets and Poetry of America was the most comprehensive of its kind up to that period. After its release, it was called the most valuable publication of the season in the April 23,1842, critic Lewis Gaylord Clark considered it important to become incorporated into the permanent undying literature of our age and nation. Some critics, however, did not agree with Griswolds selections, the Albany, New York-based Poets Magazine criticized the undue prominence granted to lesser poetasters, including Edgar Poe. Charles Fenno Hoffman, for example, was a friend of Griswold and, modern scholars have dismissed the anthology as a graveyard of poets because many of the writers collected are now virtually unknown. Literary historian Fred Lewis Pattee called the book a collection of poetic trash, in his day, The Poets and Poetry of America propelled Griswold to a national spotlight in the 1840s and 1850s. Griswolds American Poetry by Edgar A
9.
Richard Henry Dana Sr.
–
Richard Henry Dana Sr. was an American poet, critic and lawyer. His son, Richard Henry Dana Jr. also became a lawyer, Richard Henry Dana was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 15,1787, the son of Federalist judge Francis Dana. He graduated from Harvard College and became a lawyer and he married Ruth Charlotte Smith and they had four children including Richard Henry Dana Jr. Despite having graduated there, Dana accused Harvard of smothering genius. Between 1817 and 1827, he was the first American to write major critiques of Romanticism, in a review of the poetry of Washington Allston, he noted his belief that poetry was the highest form of art, though it should be simple and must avoid didacticism. Dana also criticized the Transcendentalism movement and he wrote, Emerson & the other Spiritualists, or Supernaturalists, or whatever they are called, or may be pleased to call themselves. Dana was a member of the Anthology Club, in 1817 he and others in the club founded the North American Review. As an outlet for his criticism, though he lost editorial control of it on account of his opposition to standard conventions, though some of his criticisms were controversial when first published, by 1850 his opinions were conventional. As he wrote at the time, Much that was held to be presumptuous novelty. As a writer of fiction, Dana was a practitioner of Gothic literature, particularly with his novel Paul Felton. The novel has also called a pioneering work of psychological realism alongside works by William Gilmore Simms. Dana had difficulty supporting his family through his writing, which earned him only $400 over 30 years, in 1849, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. He lived on Chestnut Street in Bostons Beacon Hill neighborhood, ca. 1840s-1870s, Dana died on February 2,1879, and was buried in the family plot at the Old Burying Ground next to the First Parish in Cambridge. An oration, delivered before the Washington benevolent society at Cambridge, printed by Hilliard and Metcalf,1814. V.1 Paul Felton WorldCat Richard Henry Dana Sr. at Lawyers and Poetry
10.
William Cullen Bryant
–
William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Bryant was born on November 3,1794, in a log cabin near Cummington, Massachusetts and he was the second son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell. The genealogies of both of his parents back to passengers on the Mayflower, his mothers to John Alden. He was also a nephew of Charity Bryant, a Vermont seamstress who is the subject of Rachel Hope Clevess 2014 book Charity and Sylvia, Bryant and his family moved to a new home when he was two years old. The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, his home, is now a museum. After just one year at Williams College, he hoped to transfer to Yale and his father counseled a legal career as his best available choice, and the disappointed poet began to study law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts. He was admitted to the bar in 1815 and began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, on one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon, the sight moved him enough to write To a Waterfowl. Bryant developed an interest in early in life. Under his fathers tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets, the Embargo, a savage attack on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Dr. Bryants Federalist political views. The first edition sold out — partly because of publicity attached to the poets young age. A second, expanded edition included Bryants translation of classical verse, during his collegiate studies and his reading for the law, he wrote little poetry, but encounters with the Graveyard Poets and then Wordsworth regenerated his passion for the witchery of song. Thanatopsis is Bryants most famous poem, which Bryant may have been working on as early as 1811, Bryant, he submitted them along with his own work. The editor of the Review, Edward Tyrrel Channing, read the poem to his assistant, Richard Henry Dana, who immediately exclaimed, That was never written on this side of the water. Someone at the North American joined two of the sons discrete fragments, gave the result the Greek-derived title Thanatopsis, mistakenly attributed it to the father, after clarification of the authorship, the sons poems began appearing with some regularity in the. To a Waterfowl, published in 1821 was the most popular, on January 11,1821, Bryant, still striving to build a legal career, married Frances Fairchild. As it would in all collections he subsequently issued, The Ages led the volume, also entitled Poems, for that book, he added sets of lines at the beginning and end of Thanatopsis that changed the poem. His poetry has been described as being of a thoughtful, meditative character, with the encouragement of a distinguished and well-connected literary family, the Sedgwicks, he quickly gained a foothold in New York Citys vibrant cultural life. His first employment, in 1825, was as editor of the New-York Review, from Assistant Editor he rose to Editor-in-Chief and co-owner of the newspaper that had been founded by Alexander Hamilton
11.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
–
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include Paul Reveres Ride, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy, Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then a part of Massachusetts. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later and his first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems. Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854, to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts and his first wife Mary Potter died in 1835, after a miscarriage. His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861, after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire, after her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works from foreign languages. Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and he became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and his father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress. He was named after his mothers brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who had died three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli, Longfellow was the second of eight children, his siblings were Stephen, Elizabeth, Anne, Alexander, Mary, Ellen and Samuel. Longfellow was of entirely English ancestry, all of which had been in New England since the early 1600s, Longfellow attended a dame school at the age of three and by age six was enrolled at the private Portland Academy. In his years there he earned a reputation as being very studious and his mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning, introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote. He published his first poem, a patriotic and historical four-stanza poem called The Battle of Lovells Pond and he stayed at the Portland Academy until the age of fourteen. He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Pelegs farm in the western Maine town of Hiram, in the fall of 1822, the 15-year-old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, along with his brother Stephen. His grandfather was a founder of the college and his father was a trustee, there Longfellow met Nathaniel Hawthorne, who would later become his lifelong friend. He boarded with a clergyman for a time before rooming in 1823 on the floor of what is now known as Winthrop Hall. He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings, in his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations, I will not disguise it in the least. The fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature, my whole soul burns most ardently after it, and every earthly thought centres in it. I am almost confident in believing, that if I can ever rise in the world it must be by the exercise of my talents in the field of literature. He pursued his goals by submitting poetry and prose to various newspapers and magazines
12.
English poetry
–
This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life
13.
Robert Browning
–
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, Brownings early career began promisingly, but was not a success. His reputation took more than a decade to recover, during which time he moved away from the Shelleyan forms of his early period, in 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was considerably better known than himself. So started one of historys most famous literary marriages and they went to live in Italy, a country he called my university, and which features frequently in his work. By the time of her death in 1861, he had published the crucial collection Men and Women, the collection Dramatis Personae and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book followed, and made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation rests largely on the poetry he wrote in this middle period. Unusually for a poet, societies for the study of his work were founded while he was still alive, such Browning Societies remained common in Britain and the United States until the early 20th century. Brownings admirers have tended to temper their praise with reservations about the length and difficulty of his most ambitious poems, particularly The Ring and the Book. Nevertheless, they have included such eminent writers as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, among living writers, Stephen Kings The Dark Tower series and A. S. Byatts Possession refer directly to Brownings work, today Brownings critically most esteemed poems include the monologues Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea Del Sarto, and My Last Duchess. Robert Browning was born in Walworth in the parish of Camberwell, Surrey and he was baptized on 14 June 1812, at Locks Fields Independent Chapel, York Street, Walworth, the only son of Sarah Anna and Robert Browning. His father was a clerk for the Bank of England. Brownings paternal grandfather was an owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies. Brownings father had sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation. Brownings mother was the daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee in Scotland, the evidence, however, is inconclusive either way. Roberts father, a collector, amassed a library of around 6,000 books. As such, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources and his mother, to whom he was very close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brothers companion in his later years and his father encouraged his childrens interest in literature and the arts
14.
My Last Duchess
–
My Last Duchess is a poem by Robert Browning, frequently anthologised as an example of the dramatic monologue. It first appeared in 1842 in Brownings Dramatic Lyrics, the poem is written in 28 rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter. Lucrezia was not well educated, and the Medicis could be considered nouveau riche in comparison to the venerable and she came with a sizeable dowry, and the couple married in 1558. He then abandoned her for two years before she died on 21 April 1561, at age 17, there was a strong suspicion of poisoning. The Duke then sought the hand of Barbara, eighth daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary and the sister of the Count of Tyrol, Ferdinand II. The count was in charge of arranging the marriage, the chief of his entourage, Nikolaus Madruz, Madruz is presumably the silent listener in the poem. The other characters named in the poem, painter Frà Pandolf, the poem is set during the late Italian Renaissance. The speaker is giving the emissary of the family of his new wife a tour of the artworks in his home. He draws a curtain to reveal a painting of a woman, explaining that it is a portrait of his wife, he invites his guest to sit. As they look at the portrait of the late Duchess, the Duke describes her happy, cheerful and flirtatious nature and he says, She had a heart – how shall I say. He goes on to say that his complaint of her was that twas not her husbands presence only that made her happy, eventually, I gave commands, then all smiles stopped together. This could be interpreted as either the Duke had given commands to the Duchess to stop smiling or commands for her to be killed and he now keeps her painting hidden behind a curtain that only he is allowed to draw back, meaning that now she only smiles for him. In My Last Duchess the Duke of Ferrara is addressing the envoy of the Count of Tyrol, although he is on his best behaviour, the Duke of Ferrara demonstrates many sociopathic tendencies as he recalls the time he shared with his now-deceased Duchess. Even in death the Duke wished to hide her away behind the curtain where no man could admire her beauty. In an interview, Browning said, I meant that the commands were that she should be put to death, or he might have had her shut up in a convent. Science fiction author Eric Flint uses portions of My Last Duchess in his book 1634, canadian author Margaret Atwoods short story My Last Duchess appears in her short story anthology Moral Disorder. It is about two high school students who study the poem and argue about its meaning, south African author Judy Croome based the main character Rax-ul-Can in her apocalyptic short story The Last Sacrifice on the Duke in Brownings My Last Duchess. In The Painter, a song by Chris de Burgh, the lyrics take the Dukes point of view
15.
Thomas Campbell (poet)
–
Thomas Campbell was a Scottish poet chiefly remembered for his sentimental poetry dealing especially with human affairs. A co-founder of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, in 1799, he wrote The Pleasures of Hope, a traditional 18th century didactic poem in heroic couplets. He also produced several stirring patriotic war songs—Ye Mariners of England, The Soldiers Dream, Hohenlinden and in 1801, The Battle of Mad and Strange Turkish Princes. Born on High Street, Glasgow in 1777, he was the youngest of the children of Alexander Campbell, son of the 6th and last Laird of Kirnan, Argyll. His mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Robert Campbell of Craignish and Mary, daughter of Robert Simpson, a celebrated Royal Armourer. In about 1737, his father went to Falmouth, Virginia as a merchant in business with his wifes brother Daniel Campbell and they enjoyed a long period of prosperity until he lost his property and their old and respectable firm collapsed in consequence of the American Revolutionary War. Having personally lost nearly £20,000, Campbells father was nearly ruined, several of Thomas brothers remained in Virginia, one of whom married a daughter of Patrick Henry. Both his parents were inclined, his father being a close friend of Thomas Reid while his mother was known for her refined taste and love of literature. Thomas Campbell was educated at the High School of Glasgow and the University of Glasgow and he spent the holidays as a tutor in the western Highlands and his poems Glenara and the Ballad of Lord Ullins Daughter were written during this time while visiting the Isle of Mull. In 1797, Campbell travelled to Edinburgh to attend lectures on law and he continued to support himself as a tutor and through his writing, aided by Robert Anderson, the editor of the British Poets. Among his contemporaries in Edinburgh were Sir Walter Scott, Lord Henry Brougham, Lord Francis Jeffrey, Thomas Brown, John Leyden and these early days in Edinburgh influenced such works as The Wounded Hussar, The Dirge of Wallace and the Epistle to Three Ladies. In 1799, six months after the publication of the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge and its success was instantaneous, but Campbell was deficient in energy and perseverance and did not follow it up. He went abroad in June 1800 without any very definite aim, visited Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock at Hamburg, and made his way to Regensburg and he found refuge in a Scottish monastery. Some of his best lyrics, Hohenlinden, Ye Mariners of England and The Soldiers Dream and he spent the winter in Altona, where he met an Irish exile, Anthony McCann, whose history suggested The Exile of Erin. He had at time the intention of writing an epic on Edinburgh to be entitled The Queen of the North. On the outbreak of war between Denmark and England he hurried home, the Battle of the Baltic being drafted soon after, at Edinburgh he was introduced to the first Lord Minto, who took him in the next year to London as occasional secretary. In June 1803 appeared a new edition of the Pleasures of Hope, in 1803 Campbell married his second cousin, Matilda Sinclair, and settled in London. He was well received in Whig society, especially at Holland House and his prospects, however, were slight when in 1805 he received a government pension of £200
16.
Frederick William Faber
–
Orat. was a noted English hymn writer and theologian, who converted from Anglicanism to the Catholic priesthood. His best-known work is Faith of Our Fathers, though he was a Roman Catholic writing for fellow Catholics at that point, many of his hymns today are sung by Protestant congregations. Faber was born in 1814 at Calverley, then within the Parish of Calverley in the West Riding of Yorkshire and his father served the local bishop of the Church of England as his secretary. Faber attended grammar school at Bishop Auckland in County Durham for a short time and he afterwards attended the Harrow School for five years, followed by enrollment in 1832 at Balliol College at the University of Oxford. In 1834, he obtained a scholarship at the University College, in 1836 he won the Newdigate Prize for a poem on The Knights of St John, which elicited special praise from John Keble. Among his college friends were Arthur Penrhyn Stanley and Roundell Palmer, after graduation he was elected a fellow of the college. Fabers family was of Huguenot descent, and Calvinist beliefs were held by them. When Faber had come to Oxford, he was exposed to the Anglo-Catholic preaching of the Oxford Movement which was beginning to develop in the Church of England. One of its most prominent proponents was the popular preacher John Henry Newman, Faber struggled with these divergent forms of Christian beliefs and life. In order to relieve his tension, he would take long vacations in the Lake District, there he was befriended by another poet, William Wordsworth. He finally abandoned the Calvinistic views of his youth and became a follower of Newman. Faber was ordained in the Church of England in 1839, after which he spent time supporting himself as a tutor, in 1843, Faber accepted the position of rector at a church in Elton, then in Huntingdonshire but now in Cambridgeshire. His first act was to go to Rome to learn how best to carry out his pastoral charge, Faber introduced the Catholic practices of celebrating feast days, confession and the devotion of the Sacred Heart to the congregation. Many of his parishioners were reputed to be living in de facto relationships and he developed the thought of following a monastic way of life and was joined by several men with whom he formed a small community at the rectory. Faber caused a small furore through his publication of a Life of St. Wilfrid, nonetheless he was accepted by the people of the parish. He was accompanied in this step by eleven men of the community which had formed around him in Elton. They settled in Birmingham, where they organized themselves in a religious community. Faber and his religious community were encouraged in their venture by the Earl of Shrewsbury
17.
James Halliwell-Phillipps
–
James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, born James Orchard Halliwell, was an English Shakespearean scholar, antiquarian, and a collector of English nursery rhymes and fairy tales. The son of Thomas Halliwell, he was born in London and was educated privately and he devoted himself to antiquarian research, particularly of early English literature. In 1839 he edited Sir John Mandevilles Travels, in 1842 published an Account of the European manuscripts in the Chetham Library, in 1841, while at Cambridge, the young Halliwell dedicated his book Reliquae Antiquae to Sir Thomas Phillipps, the noted bibliomaniac. Phillipps invited Halliwell to stay at his estate, Middle Hill, there Halliwell met Phillippss daughter, Henrietta, to whom he soon proposed marriage. However, also around this time, Halliwell was accused of stealing manuscripts from Trinity College, Cambridge, although never prosecuted, Phillippss suspicions were aroused and he refused to consent to the marriage. This led to the couples elopement in 1842, william A. Jackson, bibliographer and Harvard professor, also argues that Halliwell stole an exceedingly rare 1603 quarto Hamlet from Phillipps, removed the title page and later sold it. Phillipps refused ever to see his daughter or Halliwell again, Halliwell also had a habit, detested by bibliophiles, of cutting up seventeenth-century books and pasting parts he liked into scrapbooks. During his life he destroyed eight hundred books and made thirty-six hundred scraps, after 1870 he entirely gave up textual criticism, and devoted his attention to elucidating the particulars of Shakespeares life. He collated all the facts and documents in relation to it. He was mainly instrumental in the purchase of New Place for the corporation of Stratford-on-Avon and his publications in all numbered more than sixty volumes. He assumed the name of Phillipps in 1872, under the will of the grandfather of his first wife and he took an active interest in the Camden Society, the Percy Society and the Shakespeare Society, for which he edited many early English and Elizabethan works. He published privately an explanation of the matter in 1845 and he died on 3 January 1889, and was buried in Patcham churchyard, near Hollingbury in East Sussex. A Dictionary of Archaic & Provincial Words, Obsolete Phrases, Proverbs & Ancient Customs, Form the Fourteenth Century, Volume 1 Halliwell-Phillipps, a Hand-Book Index to the Works of Shakespeare, Including References to the Phrases, Manners, Customs, Proverbs, Songs, Particles, &c. Which Are Used or Alluded to by the Great Dramatist, Cambridge Jokes, From the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. Thomas Stevenson, Tilt and Bogue Spevack, Martin, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, The Life and Works, Oak Knoll Press
18.
Leigh Hunt
–
James Henry Leigh Hunt, best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist, poet, and writer. James Henry Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, where his parents had settled after leaving the United States, Hunts father took holy orders and became a popular preacher, but he was unsuccessful in obtaining a permanent living. Hunts father was employed by James Brydges, 3rd Duke of Chandos, as tutor to his nephew, James Henry Leigh. Leigh Hunt was educated at Christs Hospital from 1791 to 1799 and he entered the school shortly after Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb had both left, Thomas Barnes, however, was a school friend of his. One of the current boarding houses at Christs Hospital is named after him, as a boy, he was an ardent admirer of Thomas Gray and William Collins, writing many verses in imitation of them. A speech impediment, later cured, prevented his going to university, for some time after I left school, he says, I did nothing but visit my school-fellows, haunt the book-stalls and write verses. His poems were published in 1801 under the title of Juvenilia and he began to write for the newspapers, and published in 1807 a volume of theatre criticism, and a series of Classic Tales with critical essays on the authors. Hunts early essays were published by Edward Quin, editor and owner of The Traveller, in 1809, Leigh Hunt married Marianne Kent. Marianne, who had been in ill health for most of her life, died 26 January 1857, Leigh Hunt made little mention of his family in his autobiography. Mariannes sister, Elizabeth Kent, became his amanuensis, in 1808 he left the War Office, where he had been working as a clerk, to become editor of the Examiner, a newspaper founded by his brother, John. Blakes response included Leigh Hunt, who aside from publishing the vitriolic reviews of 1808 and 1809 had added Blakes name on a list of quacks. This journal soon acquired a reputation for political independence, it would attack any worthy target, from a principle of taste. Leigh Hunts visitors in prison included Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Lord Brougham, Charles Lamb and others, the stoicism with which Leigh Hunt bore his imprisonment attracted general attention and sympathy. His imprisonment allowed him many luxuries and access to friends and family, when Jeremy Bentham called on him, he was found playing battledore. Twelve of the essays were by Hunt, the rest by Hazlitt. In 1810–1811 he edited a magazine, the Reflector, for his brother John. He wrote The Feast of the Poets for this, a satire, in 1819–1821, Hunt edited The Indicator, a weekly literary periodical published by Joseph Appleyard. Hunt probably wrote much of the content as well, which included reviews, essays, stories, in 1828 from January to July, Hunt edited The Companion, a weekly literary periodical published by Hunt and Clarke
