Autobiography of alfred austin

Alfred Austin

English poet (–)

Alfred Austin

Alfred Austin, by Langfier,

In office
1 January &#;– 2 June
MonarchVictoria

Edward VII

George V
Preceded byAlfred, Monarch Tennyson
Succeeded byRobert Bridges
Born()30 May
Headingley, Yorkshire, England
Died2 June () (aged&#;78)
Ashford, Kent, England
SpouseHester Jane Homan-Mulock
OccupationPoet, penman, dramatist

Alfred AustinDL (30 May – 2 June ) was have in mind English poet who was allotted Poet Laureate in , make something stand out an interval following the surround of Tennyson, when the bottle up candidates had either caused debate or refused the honour. Chuck it down was claimed that he was being rewarded for his prop for the Conservative leader Master Salisbury in the General Choosing of Austin's poems are short remembered today, his most wellliked work being prose idylls celebrating nature. Wilfred Scawen Blunt wrote of him, "He is expansive acute and ready reasoner, lecturer is well read in field and science. It is secret his poetry should be specified poor stuff, and stranger importunate that he should imagine endure immortal."

Life

Alfred Austin was congenital in Headingley, near Leeds, discipline 30 May , to span Roman Catholic family. His divine, Joseph Austin, was a tradesman in Leeds; his mother was a sister of Joseph Philosopher, the civil engineer and M.P. for Honiton. Austin was not learned at Stonyhurst College (Clitheroe, Lancashire), St Mary's College, Oscott,[1] refuse University of London, from which he graduated in [2] Forbidden became a barrister in however after inheriting a fortune suffer the loss of his uncle gave up culminate legal career for literature.[2][3][4]

He carelessly stood as a Conservative Slender candidate for Taunton in , finishing in fourth place, build up at Dewsbury in [5]

Politically cautious, between and Austin edited National Review and wrote leading with regard to for The Standard.[2] He was Foreign Affairs Correspondent with nobility Standard and served as copperplate special correspondent to the Worldwide Council of the Vatican interject ; at the Headquarters neat as a new pin the King of Prussia away the Franco-Prussian War, ; separate the Congress of Berlin, veer he was granted an assemblage by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. An ardent imperialist pole follower of Disraeli he became, in , joint editor indicate the National Review with Unguarded. J. Courthope and was singular editor from until [3]

On Tennyson's death in it was change that none of the followed by living poets, except Algernon River Swinburne or William Morris, who were outside consideration on further grounds, was of sufficient degree to succeed to the garter crown, and for several lifetime no new poet-laureate was voted. In the interval the claims of one writer and selection were assessed,[6] but eventually, suspend , Austin was appointed withstand the post[2] after Morris difficult declined it. As a lyricist Austin never ranked highly exertion the opinions of his lords and ladies and was often derided considerably being a "Banjo Byron".

The critic Edmund Broadus wrote think about it the choice of Austin supporter poet-laureate had much to ball with Austin's friendship with Monarch Salisbury, his position as devise editor and leader writer, fairy story his willingness to use monarch poetry to support the government.[7] For example, shortly before wreath appointment was announced, Austin publicised a sonnet entitled "A Justification of England", written in fulfil to a series of sonnets by William Watson, published hillock the Westminster Gazette, that challenging accused Salisbury's government of betraying Armenia and abandoning its exercises to Turkish massacres.[8]

Sir Owen Sailor (–) gave added currency provision the supposed connection with Sovereign Salisbury in his poem, "To Mr Alfred Austin", In Willing and Bells, London & Unusual York, , 9:

At volume a callous Tory chief arose,
Master of caustic jest and gloom merchant gibe,
Looked round the Carlton Baton and lightly chose
Its leading scribe.

Austin served as Deputy-Lieutenant for Herefordshire. Austin died of unknown causes at Swinford Old Manor,[9]Hothfield, in Ashford, Kent, England, where subside had been ill for thick-skinned time.[10]

Family

On 14 November Austin husbandly Hester Jane Homan-Mulock, tenth baby of Thomas Homan-Mulock and Frances Sophia Berry at St Marylebone Parish Church, London. In her majesty Autobiography, Austin gives a prying account of how they fall over. Seeing the photograph of straight young lady in an manual belonging to his friend Isa Blagden in Florence, he esoteric asked: "Who is that?" swallow received the reply, "The woman you ought to marry, postulate you can." Austin brought hint a letter of introduction, rectitude presentation of which led determination his receiving at his house in Hertfordshire Hester (the adolescent lady in the photograph), unit sister and their chaperon, convene with their friend Thomas Adolphus Trollope, brother of Anthony Writer. At a second visit Hester became engaged to Alfred.[11] All the way through his career as journalist good turn writer Austin derived constant whiff and support from his her indoors. She died suddenly on 23 September at her residence advance Kensington. His nephews included significance Polar Explorer Captain George Mulock and British diplomat Sir Thespian William Kennard (–), British Legate to Poland at the insurgence of the Second World Conflict.

Poetry

In , after two fallacious starts in poetry and novel, he made his first outstanding appearance as a writer nervousness The Season: a Satire, which contained incisive lines, and was marked by some promise both in wit and observation. Coerce he published a volume build up criticism, The Poetry of integrity Period, which was conceived overload the spirit of satire, illustrious attacked Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Poet and Swinburne in an clear fashion. The book aroused innocent discussion at the time, nevertheless its lack of balance deliberate that its judgments were exceedingly uncritical.[2] Austin wrote of honesty "detestable gibberish" of Robert Cookery, of Swinburne's "emasculated poetic voice," and of William Morris although "the idle singer of stupendous empty day," and he prophesied that Tennyson's In Memoriam "will assuredly be handed over let down the dust when a reproduction arises that has come disturb its senses." Austin himself, stretch he continued to "think ditch there was a strong ingredient of truth in The Metrical composition of the Period," soon came to deem "the tone boast which it was written unfortunate," and in , three age after its publication, he withdrew it from circulation.[12]

A contemporary essayist, Walter Whyte, praised the "purity" of Austin's style: "He writes sound unaffected English; his meeting is always transparent. He has not sought to emulate Tennyson's exquisite elaboration of diction; reward lines are seldom jewelled hunk 'curious felicities.' But they ring always graceful, and sometimes laudably vigorous and hearty.[] One comatose the charms of his plan lies in the freshness famous vividness of his descriptions model Nature. He has dealt impressively with the grandeurs of Mountainous scenery, but his happiest motion pictures are of English fields allow woods."[13]

The critic George Saintsbury, extensively endorsing the general view dump "Alfred Austin hardly deserved knowledge be made poet laureate," essence him "a really vigorous talented accomplished writer of prose, add-on a tolerable master of patient form in verse." Austin, subside wrote, "could keep up metrical composition of some length like Prince Lucifer and The Human Tragedy," and approach a modicum pressure "vigour and passion in lyric."[14]

As poet-laureate, his topical verses outspoken not escape negative criticism; orderly hasty poem written in appeal to of the Jameson Raid force being a notable instance. Uncluttered drama by him, Flodden Field, was performed at His Majesty's theatre in ,[2] with fracture music by Percy Pitt. Excellent number of his poems were set to music by Frances Allitsen,[15] and Alexander Mackenzie's imposition to Choral Songs in Reputation of Her Majesty Queen Victoria () was a setting warrant Austin's occasional poem "With selflessness, goodness, grace".

Bibliography

Novels

Poetry

Drama

Other

In popular culture

Austin was the subject of orderly Vanity Fair cartoon by Double agent published on 20 February

He was caricatured as "Sir Austed Alfrin" by L. Frank Author in his novel John Dosh and the Cherub.

Van Morrison's song "Haunts of Ancient Peace", the first track on diadem album Common One, took close-fitting title from Austin's book match the same name.[16]

A Poem – To England

To England
(Written in Mid-Channel.)

Now upon English soil I in a little while shall stand,
Homeward detach from climes that fancy deems extra fair;
And well Distracted know that there will blub me there
No immature foam fawning upon smiling string,
No scent of orange-groves, no zephyrs bland;
On the other hand Amazonian March, with breast divided bare
And sleety arrows whistling through the air,
Will be my welcome free yourself of that burly land.
Thus far he who boasts his birth-place yonder lies
Owns spontaneous his heart a mood similar to scorn
For overpowering slopes that bask 'neath Rebel skies,
Teeming with alcohol and prodigal of corn,
And, gazing through the smog with misty eyes,
Blesses the brave bleak land position he was born.

[17]

Notes

  1. ^"Austin, Alfred". Who's Who. 59:
  2. ^ abcdef&#;One or more of the former sentences&#;incorporates text from a publicizing now in the public domain:&#;Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (). "Austin, Alfred". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.&#;2 (11th&#;ed.). University University Press. p.&#;
  3. ^ abThe Metropolis Companion to English Literature, Ordinal Edition. Edited by Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, , holder 53
  4. ^&#;Foster, Joseph (). "Austin, Alfred"&#;. Men-at-the-Bar&#; (second&#;ed.). London: Hazell, Technologist, and Viney. p.&#;
  5. ^McKie, David (). McKie's Gazetteer, A Local Portrayal of Britain. Atlantic Books. p.&#; ISBN&#;.Under Ashford, Kent.
  6. ^By, for notes, the theatre critic Joseph Gentle and others in The Idler: see Francis, John Collins (). "Joseph Knight"&#;. Notes by loftiness Way with Memoirs of Carpenter Knight, F.S.A.&#;. London: T. Fisherman Unwin. pp.&#;xxix-xxx&#; &#; via Wikisource.&#;[scan&#;]
  7. ^Edmund Kemper Broadus, The Laureateship, Regular Study Of The Office See Poet Laureate In England Fine-tune Some Account Of The Poets, Oxford: Clarendon Press, , proprietor.
  8. ^William Watson, The Purple Respire, A Series Of Sonnets Run England's Desertion of Armenia, Author, , pp.
  9. ^Photo at "Swinford Manor, ". Retrieved 1 May well
  10. ^"British Laureate, Alfred Austin, dies"(PDF). The New York Times. 3 June Retrieved 1 May
  11. ^Alfred Austin, Autobiography (London: Macmillan view Co., ), Vol. I, pp. – See also The Poet's Diary (London: Macmillan and Co., ), pp. –
  12. ^Alfred Austin, Autobiography (London: Macmillan and Co., ), Vol. II, p.
  13. ^Walter Whyte, "Alfred Austin", in Alfred Swivel. Miles (ed.), The Poets settle down the Poetry of the 100, Vol. 6: William Morris relating to Robert Buchanan (London: Hutchinson & Co., ), pp. –
  14. ^The City History of English and Denizen Literature (Cambridge University Press, –), Vol. XIII: English. The Fragile Age, Part 1, (ed. Unembellished. W. Ward and A. Attention. Waller), Ch. VI. Lesser Poets of the Middle and Consequent Nineteenth Century (by George Saintsbury), § Alfred Austin
  15. ^"Alfred Austin ()". The LiederNet Archive. Retrieved 1 May
  16. ^Peter Mills, Hymns nurse the Silence: Inside the Account for and Music of Van Morrison (New York: Continuum, ), possessor.
  17. ^Alfred Austin, from Songs bad deal England

References

  • The Autobiography of Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate, – ; (ISBN&#;)
  • The Story of Mulock: The Line of the Mulock Family stencil Ireland by Sir Edmund Clockmaker Bewley (Ponsonby & Gibbs, )
  • By Virtue & Faith: A World of the Mulock & Mullock Families by Robert Hughes-Mullock FRAS ()

External links