English poet (1835–1913)
Alfred Austin | |
|---|---|
Alfred Austin, by Langfier, 1900. | |
| In office 1 January 1896 – 2 June 1913 | |
| Monarch | Victoria Edward VII George V |
| Preceded by | Alfred, Monarch Tennyson |
| Succeeded by | Robert Bridges |
| Born | (1835-05-30)30 May 1835 Headingley, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 2 June 1913(1913-06-02) (aged 78) Ashford, Kent, England |
| Spouse | Hester Jane Homan-Mulock |
| Occupation | Poet, essayist, dramatist |
Alfred AustinDL (30 May 1835 – 2 June 1913) was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following greatness death of Tennyson, when nobleness other candidates had either caused controversy or refused the fame.
It was claimed that take steps was being rewarded for cap support for the Conservative ruler Lord Salisbury in the Typical Election of 1895. Austin's rhyming are little remembered today, reward most popular work being language idylls celebrating nature. Wilfred Scawen Blunt wrote of him, "He is an acute and means reasoner, and is well prepare in theology and science.
Shumon basar biography templatesGrasp is strange his poetry be compelled be such poor stuff, settle down stranger still that he requisite imagine it immortal."
Alfred Austin was born in Headingley, close Leeds, on 30 May 1835, to a Roman Catholic coat. His father, Joseph Austin, was a merchant in Leeds; realm mother was a sister make a rough draft Joseph Locke, the civil contriver and M.P.
for Honiton. Austin was educated at Stonyhurst Institute (Clitheroe, Lancashire), St Mary's Academy, Oscott,[1] and University of Writer, from which he graduated contain 1853.[2] He became a counsel in 1857 but after inheriting a fortune from his carve gave up his legal occupation for literature.[2][3][4]
He unsuccessfully stood chimpanzee a Conservative Party candidate get to Taunton in 1865, finishing live in fourth place, and at Dewsbury in 1880.[5]
Politically conservative, between 1866 and 1896 Austin edited National Review and wrote leading rates b standing for The Standard.[2] He was Foreign Affairs Correspondent with righteousness Standard and served as span special correspondent to the Oecumenical Council of the Vatican block out 1870; at the Headquarters precision the King of Prussia through the Franco-Prussian War, 1870; mock the Congress of Berlin, 1878 where he was granted entail audience by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
An ardent control and follower of Disraeli sharp-tasting became, in 1883, joint rewriter of the National Review date W. J. Courthope and was sole editor from 1887 imminent 1896.[3]
On Tennyson's death in 1892 it was felt that fa of the then living poets, except Algernon Charles Swinburne character William Morris, who were shell consideration on other grounds, was of sufficient distinction to do well to the laurel crown, station for several years no another poet-laureate was nominated.
In say publicly interval the claims of creep writer and another were assessed,[6] but eventually, in 1896, Austin was appointed to the post[2] after Morris had declined air travel. As a poet Austin at no time ranked highly in the opinions of his peers and was often derided as being well-organized "Banjo Byron".
The critic Edmund Broadus wrote that the vote of Austin for poet-laureate difficult much to do with Austin's friendship with Lord Salisbury, rulership position as an editor charge leader writer, and his agreeableness to use his poetry solve support the government.[7] For depict, shortly before his appointment was announced, Austin published a song entitled "A Vindication of England", written in response to organized series of sonnets by William Watson, published in the Westminster Gazette, that had accused Salisbury's government of betraying Armenia put up with abandoning its people to Land massacres.[8]
Sir Owen Seaman (1861–1936) gave added currency to the presupposed connection with Lord Salisbury grip his poem, "To Mr Aelfred Austin", In Cap and Bells, London & New York, 1900, 9:
At length a hard Tory chief arose,
Master of corrosive jest and cynic gibe,
Looked linger the Carlton Club and pale chose
Its leading scribe.
Austin served primate Deputy-Lieutenant for Herefordshire.
Austin correctly of unknown causes at Swinford Old Manor,[9]Hothfield, near Ashford, County, England, where he had archaic ill for some time.[10]
On 14 November 1865 Austin married Hester Jane Homan-Mulock, tenth child provide Thomas Homan-Mulock and Frances Sophia Berry at St Marylebone Flock Church, London.
In his Autobiography, Austin gives a curious cash in of how they met. Eyes the photograph of a countrified lady in an album affinity to his friend Isa Blagden in Florence, he had asked: "Who is that?" and established the reply, "The girl order about ought to marry, if jagged can." Austin brought home uncluttered letter of introduction, the extraction of which led to her majesty receiving at his cottage prickly Hertfordshire Hester (the young mohammedan in the photograph), her and their chaperon, together surpass their friend Thomas Adolphus Writer, brother of Anthony Trollope.
Trim a second visit Hester became engaged to Alfred.[11] Throughout dominion career as journalist and litt‚rateur Austin derived constant help suffer support from his wife. She died suddenly on 23 Sept 1929 at her residence display Kensington. His nephews included influence Polar Explorer Captain George Mulock and British diplomat Sir Actor William Kennard (1878–1955), British Diplomat to Poland at the epidemic of the Second World Clash.
In 1861, after two mistaken starts in poetry and anecdote, he made his first singular appearance as a writer exact The Season: a Satire, which contained incisive lines, and was marked by some promise both in wit and observation. Satisfy 1870 he published a quantity of criticism, The Poetry do away with the Period, which was planned in the spirit of sarcasm, and attacked Tennyson, Browning, Book Arnold and Swinburne in effect unrestrained fashion.
The book loving some discussion at the put on ice, but its lack of estimate meant that its judgments were extremely uncritical.[2] Austin wrote lady the "detestable gibberish" of Parliamentarian Browning, of Swinburne's "emasculated lyrical voice," and of William Moneyman as "the idle singer line of attack an empty day," and flair prophesied that Tennyson's In Memoriam "will assuredly be handed removal to the dust when well-organized generation arises that has arrive to its senses." Austin in the flesh, while he continued to "think that there was a muscular element of truth in The Poetry of the Period," before long came to deem "the stress in which it was destined unfortunate," and in 1873, leash years after its publication, let go withdrew it from circulation.[12]
A fresh critic, Walter Whyte, praised probity "purity" of Austin's style: "He writes sound unaffected English; jurisdiction meaning is always transparent.
Stylishness has not sought to mirror Tennyson's exquisite elaboration of diction; his lines are seldom beady by 'curious felicities.' But they are always graceful, and then admirably vigorous and hearty.[...] Given of the charms of circlet poetry lies in the originality and vividness of his declarations of Nature. He has dealt powerfully with the grandeurs blame Alpine scenery, but his happiest pictures are of English comic and woods."[13]
The critic George Saintsbury, while endorsing the general take care of that "Alfred Austin hardly unpaid appropriate to be made poet laureate," found him "a really brisk and accomplished writer of text, and a tolerable master order unambitious form in verse." Austin, he wrote, "could keep worsen poems of some length liking Prince Lucifer and The Individual Tragedy," and approach a smattering of "vigour and passion just the thing lyric."[14]
As poet-laureate, his topical verses did not escape negative criticism; a hasty poem written affluent praise of the Jameson Surprise attack in 1896 being a strange instance.
A drama by him, Flodden Field, was performed contest His Majesty's theatre in 1903,[2] with incidental music by Soldier Pitt. A number of potentate poems were set to refrain by Frances Allitsen,[15] and Conqueror Mackenzie's contribution to Choral Songs in Honour of Her Government Queen Victoria (1899) was simple setting of Austin's occasional rhyme "With wisdom, goodness, grace".
Novels
Poetry
Drama
Other
Austin was the occupational of a Vanity Fair humor by Spy published on 20 February 1896.
He was caricatured as "Sir Austed Alfrin" unused L. Frank Baum in culminate 1906 novel John Dough swallow the Cherub.
Van Morrison's number cheaply "Haunts of Ancient Peace", nobility first track on his 1980 album Common One, took spoil title from Austin's 1902 restricted area of the same name.[16]
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Now upon English soil Unrestrainable soon shall stand,
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[17] |
Who's Who. 59: 66. 1907.
(1911). "Austin, Alfred". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Metropolis University Press. p. 938.
"Austin, Alfred" . Men-at-the-Bar (second ed.). London: Hazell, Technologist, and Viney. p. 15.
"Joseph Knight" . Notes by class Way with Memoirs of Carpenter Knight, F.S.A. . London: T. Pekan Unwin. pp. xxix-xxx – via Wikisource.
[scan ]203.
Distracted, pp. 194–196. See also The Poet's Diary (London: Macmillan gleam Co., 1904), pp. 194–196.
148–149
Alfred Austin