James Thomson (2) (1700–1748)
Auteur de The Seasons
Pour les autres auteurs qui s'appellent James Thomson, voyez la page de désambigüisation.
A propos de l'auteur
Thomson, the son of a Scottish clergyman, was educated for the ministry at Edinburgh University but went instead to London, where he joined Alexander Pope's literary circle. His boyhood in the country greatly influenced his mature poetry. The Seasons (1730), a series of nature poems, grew to more afficher plus than 5,000 lines in its final version; it became the most popular poem of the eighteenth century and inspired Joseph Haydn's great musical setting. Thomson can justly be credited with undermining the supremacy of the couplet and with changing poetic taste. With Thomson, the center of poetic interest moved from the city to the country. Thomson was a deeply committed humanitarian poet, convinced that human nature was basically benevolent and that physical nature was a manifestation of the divine spirit. For this reason, he is often regarded as a "preromantic." He is also the author of the supremely famous song Rule, Britannia (1740). (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Crédit image: Photo © ÖNB/Wien
Œuvres de James Thomson
The Works of James Thomson 13 exemplaires
Thomson and Pollok: containing The Seasons, by James Thomson, and The Course of Time, by Robert Pollok, A.M. (2006) 3 exemplaires
The castle of indolence and other poems 3 exemplaires
Coriolanus. A tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden. By the late James Thomson 2 exemplaires
Poems, essays and fragments 2 exemplaires
Tancred and Sigismunda; a tragedy As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal, in Drury-Lane, by His Majesty's servants 2 exemplaires
The castle of indolence. An allegorical poem. Written in imitation of Spenser. By James Thompson. The second edition. (2012) 1 exemplaire
Poems. viz. Spring. Summer. Automn. Winter. To the memory of Sir Isaac Newton. And Britannia. 1 exemplaire
Letters and documents 1 exemplaire
The poetical works of Thomson and Gray 1 exemplaire
Sophonisba. A tragedy 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Edition, Volume 1 (1974) — Contributeur — 20 exemplaires
English Verse: Volume 3: The Eighteenth Century: Swift to Crabbe (Penguin Classics) (1995) — Contributeur — 11 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1700-09-11
- Date de décès
- 1748-08-27
- Lieu de sépulture
- St Mary Magdalene church, Richmond, Middlesex, England
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- Scotland
- Pays (pour la carte)
- Scotland, UK
- Lieu de naissance
- Ednam, Roxburghshire, Scotland
- Lieu du décès
- Richmond upon Thames, Middlesex, England
- Cause du décès
- fever (by taking cold on the water between London and Kew)
- Études
- Edinburgh University
- Professions
- tutor
teacher
secretary - Relations
- Mallet, David (lifelong friend)
- Organisations
- Grotesque Club (Edinburgh literary group|member)
Membres
Critiques
Inherited book with Scottish Poetry in solid flowery hardbound wood and leather binding. Unreviewed 18th century poet.
[S]ome parts [of The Seasons] are frankly boring, and some (e.g. the bathing episode in Summer) are in a false taste. I don't myself think that any of it is as good as the opening of The Castle of Indolence: the second canto everyone gives up as hopeless.
- from a 1 October 1931 letter to Arthur Greeves, in The collected letters of C.S. Lewis, volume I
'The Castle of Indolence' goes on excellently: it is quite a good imitation of Spencer, and has a certain shy humour mixed with it, which Spencer himself has not.
- from a 3 June 1917 letter to Arthur Greeves, in The collected letters of C.S. Lewis, volume I… (plus d'informations)
- from a 1 October 1931 letter to Arthur Greeves, in The collected letters of C.S. Lewis, volume I
'The Castle of Indolence' goes on excellently: it is quite a good imitation of Spencer, and has a certain shy humour mixed with it, which Spencer himself has not.
- from a 3 June 1917 letter to Arthur Greeves, in The collected letters of C.S. Lewis, volume I… (plus d'informations)
Listes
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 20
- Aussi par
- 8
- Membres
- 275
- Popularité
- #84,339
- Évaluation
- 3.8
- Critiques
- 5
- ISBN
- 81
- Langues
- 3
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,
Anemonies; auriculas, enrich'd
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves;
And full ranunculus, of glowing red.
Then comes the tulip race, where Beauty plays
Her idle freaks; from family diffus'd
To family, as flies the father-dust
The varied colours run. . .
NOT:
To give society its highest taste;
Well-order'd home man's best delight to make;
And, by submissive wisdom, modest skill,
With every gentle care-eluding art,
To raise the virtues, animate the bliss,
And sweeten all the toils of human life:
This be the female dignity and praise.
BLISS:
The western sun withdraws the shorten'd day;
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the sky,
In her chill progress, to the ground condens'd
The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze,
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the Moon,
Full-orb'd, and breaking through the scatter'd clouds,
Shows her broad visage in the crimson'd east.
Turn'd to the Sun direct, her spotted disk—
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,
A smaller earth—gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
MISS:
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast?
Is not each great, each amiable Muse
Of classic ages in thy Milton met?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as Chaos, as the bloom
Of blowing Eden fair, as Heaven sublime.
Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son. . .
and so on. such are the vicissitudes of early georgian verse. despite the lapses from descriptive euphoria, though they must have been necessary for the age, in which he praises not Britain's natural offers but its people and mores, falling for that ludicrous notion of "what oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd", and even sneaking in some disgusting Scotch mush about characters "Celadon and Amelia" — despite all that, i think SPRING, specifically, is a masterpiece. and all four poems have some of the very best blank verse i've read. it must be the English Eclogues and Georgics to Milton's Aeneid (and i always did prefer vergil's two former...)… (plus d'informations)