Love Poets

Love Poets Biography

Source(google.com.pk)

Thomas Love Peacock was an accomplished poet, essayist, opera critic, and satiric novelist. During his lifetime his works received the approbation of other writers (some of whom were Peacock’s friends and the targets of his satire), literary critics (many of whom were simply his targets), and a notoriously vocal reading public. Today, Peacock’s reputation rests almost exclusively on the merits of his seven novels, four of which—Headlong Hall, Melincourt, Nightmare Abbey, and Maid Marian—appeared in quick succession between 1815 and 1822. The remaining three—The Misfortunes of Elphin, Crotchet Castle, and Gryll Grange—were written and published at more leisurely intervals, Gryll Grange not appearing until 1861, five years before Peacock’s death. Peacock’s novels record the intellectual, social, economic, and literary discussions (sometimes battles) of early-nineteenth-century England. They are, in one sense, “conversation novels,” and many of the characters who take part in the various conversations were modeled after the leading personalities of Peacock’s day. Peacock’s novels have lost none of their appeal, however, for the subjects they address continue to inform the political and social dialogues. Their comedy still delights readers, and the conversations never go for long without a pause for comic action or comment.

 

Peacock was born in Weymouth, England, in 1785 to Samuel Peacock, a glass merchant, and Sarah Love, daughter of Thomas Love, then a retired master in the Royal Navy. When Peacock was three years old, he and his mother moved to the home of his maternal grandparents. (Several biographical accounts name the death of Peacock’s father as the probable cause of this removal, but some uncertainty regarding the death of Samuel Peacock remains.) At age six, Peacock entered a school at Englefield Green, then kept by John Harris Wicks. Several of the verse letters he wrote to family members during this time show an early interest and ability in social satire. Peacock seems to have been content at school and managed to impress his master, but the six years he spent at Englefield Green constituted Peacock’s first and only formal education. By February 1800, Peacock was working as a clerk for the merchant house of Ludlow, Fraser, and Co. in London, but he remained in their employment only briefly. He began writing poems and incidental essays at this time, and in late 1805, Palmyra, his first collection of poems, was published and well received. The title poem, a study of apocalyptic ruin, represents Peacock’s attempt at serious, learned poetry written in the style of his eighteenth-century forebears.

 

Shortly after the publication of Palmyra, Peacock became engaged to Fanny Falkner, a young woman from his neighborhood of Chertsey. The couple’s engagement, which the interference of one of Miss Falkner’s relatives soon brought to an end, was later recounted in the poem “Newark Abbey” (written in 1842). In 1808 Peacock served briefly as under secretary to Adm. Sir Home Popham aboard the HMS Venerable, which never left the harbor while Peacock was on board. The nature of his duties is not clear, but he was happy to go ashore after some six months to begin a walking tour of the Thames, soon afterward recounted in The Genius of the Thames (1810), an ode in two parts. The poem represents Peacock’s attempt to describe the river and all that it means to him and to England. The tour of the Thames was followed by a journey to Wales, where Peacock finished his poem and met Jane Gryffydh, daughter of a Welsh parson. Peacock would propose marriage to her eight years later, but for the time being his mind seems to have been on poetry, which he continued to write and publish.

 

In October or November of 1812, Peacock met Percy Bysshe Shelley, who would soon come to depend on Peacock as a friend and as a literary critic/assistant. Shelley seems to have admired Peacock’s poetry (especially Palmyra), despite the marked differences in the two poets’ subjects and techniques. By this time Peacock had one more major poem, The Philosophy of Melancholy (1812), to his credit. As Peacock explains in his prefatory “General Analysis,” the poem argues that contemplating mutability ennobles the mind, and that art and human relationships derive their “principal charms” and “endearing ties” from a philosophical consideration of mutability. Meanwhile the friendship of Peacock and Shelley continued to grow, and Peacock continued to write and to experiment with new subjects and literary forms. Two plays, The Dilettanti and The Three Doctors, neither of which was published or produced during Peacock’s lifetime, were probably written during this time. A much more successful venture was Sir Hornbook (1813), subtitled A Grammatico-Allegorical Ballad, which provided instruction in grammar for children. Its hero, Childe Launcelot, conquers the parts of speech with the assistance of Sir Hornbook as they travel toward an understanding of language and prosody. The book went through five illustrated editions in five years, thanks to Peacock’s talent for making grammar fun.

 

Peacock continued to travel, returning to Wales in 1813. At this time he was at work on two poems: the unfinished mythological epic Ahrimanes, written in Spenserian stanzas; and Sir Proteus, published in March 1814. The latter is a satiric attack on Robert Southey, the poet laureate, whose career Peacock had followed with some interest for several years. William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, and the periodical press also undergo satiric correction in Sir Proteus, but the focus of this pseudolearned poem is Southey, whose poems, Peacock’s persona argues, are written without reference to taste, nature, or conscience. Shortly after the publication of Sir Proteus, Peacock learned of Shelley’s elopement with Mary Godwin, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Two weeks after the elopement, Shelley wrote a letter to his wife, Harriet, inviting her to join them on the Continent. In the same letter Shelley told Harriet that he had asked Peacock to look after her financial needs. Peacock evidently did as he was asked, motivated in part by his sympathy for Harriet and in part by his esteem for his friend.

In a quieter time, in 1795, Peacock had begun a letter to his mother with these lines: “DEAR MOTHER, I attempt to write you a letter/In verse, tho’ in prose, I could do it much better.” It would take Peacock twenty years to try his skill at prose fiction, but inevitably he did so, and with important and far-reaching results. In 1815, with the Shelleys back in London and living near enough to make regular visits possible, Peacock began working on his first novel, Headlong Hall, published later that year. With its reliance upon characters who embody “opinions,” its use of the country-house setting, its frequent departures into dramatic conversation, and its satiric intent, Headlong Hall proved to be much better than any of Peacock’s still commendable poetic productions. This first novel was also to be the prototype for the majority of Peacock’s later novels, for in subsequent works he modified, but never completely abandoned, the formula of Headlong Hall.

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets

Love Poets