The Poetry of Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol on 20th November 1752 some 15 weeks after the death of his father. For a time he was admitted to Edward Colston's Bristol charity school, on a limited curriculum of reading, writing, arithmetic and the catechism. Although fascinated by the church of St Mary Redcliffe where his uncle was sexton, he was liable to fits of abstraction, sitting for hours in a trance or crying for no reason. When Chatterton was 8 he was so eager for books that he would read and write all day long and by 11 he had become a contributor to Felix Farley's Bristol Journal. He lived in thought with his 15th-century heroes and heroines. The first of his literary mysteries, the dialogue of "Elinoure and Juga," was written before he was 12, and he showed it to the usher at the boarding school Colston's Hospital where he was a pupil, pretending it was the work of a 15th-century poet. Chatterton remained a boarder at Colston's Hospital for more than six years. His little pocket-money was spent borrowing books from a circulating library and always attempting to ingratiate himself with book collectors. His holidays were mostly spent at his mother's house, and much of that in the attic study living for the most part in an ideal world of his own, centered on his mid-15th century imaginary world. Chatterton soon conceived the romance of Thomas Rowley, an imaginary monk of the 15th century, and adopted for himself the pseudonym Thomas Rowley for poetry and history. He imagined he would become a famous poet who by his talents would be able to rescue his mother from poverty. Chatterton needed a patron. Many were not interested. Horace Walpole was but discovering that the poems were most probably fake and Chatterton himself only 16 scornfully sent him away. Badly hurt by Walpole's snub, Chatterton wrote very little for a summer. Then he turned his attention to periodical literature and politics, and the London periodicals. He was frequently published but received little reward for his startling efforts. Chatterton wrote at Easter 1770, ''Last Will and Testament,'' a satirical mix in jest and seriousness. The will was possibly prepared so that John Lambert, the attorney to whom he was apprenticed, cancelled his indentures. His friends and acquaintances, having donated money, Chatterton proceeded to London. He continued to write and publish in various styles and was paid little for his efforts. He wrote hopefully to his mother and sister, and spent his first earnings in buying gifts for them. In June 1770, after nine weeks in London, he moved from a shared room in Shoreditch to an attic in Brook Street, Holborn. He now enjoyed uninterrupted solitude and now could write all night. The romance of his earlier years revived, and he transcribed from an imaginary parchment of the old priest Rowley his "Excelente Balade of Charitie." This poem, disguised in archaic language, he sent to the editor of the Town and Country Magazine, where it was rejected. A neighbouring apothecary, repeatedly invited him to come for dinner or supper; but he refused. His landlady also, suspecting his necessity, pressed him to share her dinner, but in vain. "She knew," as she afterwards said, "that he had not eaten anything for two or three days." But he assured her that he was not hungry. In August 1770, while walking in St Pancras Churchyard, Chatterton was much absorbed in thought, and did not notice a newly dug open grave in his path, and subsequently tumbled into it. His walking companion helped Chatterton out of the grave, and told him that he was happy in assisting at the resurrection of a genius. Chatterton replied, "My dear friend, I have been at war with the grave for some time now."On 24th August 1770, Thomas Chatterton retired for the last time to his attic in Brook Street, carrying with him the arsenic, which he drank after tearing into fragments whatever literary remains were at hand. He was dead at a tragically young 17 years and nine months.01 - The Poetry of Thomas Chatterton - An Introduction02 - The Romance of the Knight by Thomas Chatterton03 - Happiness by Thomas Chatterton04 - Sentiment by Thomas Chatterton05 - The Advice by Thomas Chatterton06 - Picture of Autumn by Thomas Chatterton07 - The Resignation by Thomas Chatterton08 - The Copernican System by Thomas Chatterton09 - Bristol by Thomas Chatterton10 - On Mr Alcock of Bristol, An Excellent Miniature Painter by Thomas Chatterton11 - Sly Dick by Thomas Chatterton12 - To Horace Walpole by Thomas Chatterton13 - Colin Instructed by Thomas Chatterton14 - Song, Fanny of the Hill, 1770 by Thomas Chatterton15 - An Excellent Ballad of Charity by Thomas Chaterton16 - Apostate Will by Thomas Chatterton17 - The Methodist by Thomas Chatterton18 - The Churchwarden and the Apparition. A Fable by Thomas Chatterton19 - A Hymn for Christmas Day by Thomas Chatterton20 - On the Last Epiphany (Or Christ Coming to Judgement) by Thomas Chatterton21 - February. An Elegy by Thomas Chatterton22 - Elegy by Thomas Chatterton23 - Elegy on the Death of Mr Phillips by Thomas Chatterton24 - Heccar and Gaira - An African Eclogue by Thomas Chatterton25 - The Death of Nicou. An African Eclogue by Thomas Chatterton