Thomas Warwick facts for kids
Thomas Warwick was a poet and a clergyman from Cornwall, England. He was born around 1755 and passed away after 1785. He was part of a group of poets who helped bring back the sonnet, a special type of poem, in the late 1700s. He also wrote other kinds of poems, including odes and stories about medieval times. People said he was a bit unusual, and he died young in a carriage accident.
His Life Story
Thomas Warwick was born around 1755. His father was also named Thomas Warwick and was a clergyman in Levalsa, Cornwall. Thomas went to Truro Cathedral School, where he started writing poetry.
When he was sixteen, in 1771, he went to University College, Oxford. There, he earned a degree in law. After college, he became an Anglican clergyman, but he never got a permanent church job, called a benefice.
While still at Oxford in 1777, he published his first poem, The Rights of Sovereignty Asserted. This poem supported the British against the American revolutionaries and their French helpers. Between 1783 and 1785, he published more long poems from Bath, where he seemed to be living. He later died from a fall from an open carriage.
His Poetry
Warwick published five books between 1777 and 1785. He also had some poems printed in popular magazines like The Gentleman's Magazine, The London Magazine, and The European Magazine. After he died, his shorter poems were collected in a book called Poems Chiefly by Gentlemen of Devonshire and Cornwall (1792) by Richard Polwhele. His poems also appeared in other collections, including An Asylum for Fugitive Pieces, in Prose and Verse (1786) and New Elegant Extracts: A Unique Selection from the Most Eminent British Poets (1823).
Warwick wrote in a few popular styles of the 1700s. Besides his first poem, The Rights of Sovereignty Asserted, he wrote others in a more traditional style. These include "Rhapsody written at Stratford upon Avon" and "Ode occasioned by the death of Prince Leopold." He also wrote a dramatic song called "Song of Blondel," which was meant to be sung. The last two were published without his name in 1785, but Polwhele later confirmed they were Warwick's.
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When Warwick was at Oxford, the sonnet form was becoming popular again. A sonnet is a poem with 14 lines. Poets like Thomas Warton were bringing it back, and Warwick was thought to be part of this group. Warwick published 14 sonnets in his book from 1783. This was similar to Warton's nine sonnets in his 1777 book and John Codrington Bampfylde's 16 sonnets from 1778.
In the introduction to his own sonnets, Warwick defended this poem style. He said it could cover as many topics as an ode, but was simpler. He even managed to turn a long piece of an ancient Greek ode into a sonnet. Warwick was known as a good sonnet writer in his time. His name was even listed with other sonnet writers in The Gentleman's Magazine in 1792.
Warwick also wrote two longer works that focused on medieval relationships. One of these was a play about the Anglo-Saxon king Eadwig. It was published without his name in 1784, but people generally knew Warwick wrote it. Critics praised his play for being ambitious, even though they had some concerns about how well it worked as a drama. Other writers also wrote about King Eadwig, like Thomas Sedgwick Whalley and Fanny Burney.
Another of Warwick's works was an imitation of Alexander Pope's famous poem, Eloisa to Abelard, which was first published in 1717. By the time Warwick wrote his version in 1783, many others had already tried to write a reply from Abelard to Eloisa. Warwick's version was published with his 14 sonnets and the "Rhapsody written at Stratford upon Avon." His first version didn't get good reviews, so he rewrote it. His new 1785 edition, with more scholarly notes, was received a little better by critics.
