Francis Thompson Biography

Francis Thompson

(Preston, 1859-London, 1907) English poet.He was the son of a homeopathic doctor.In accordance with his inclinations, well seen by the family, who were Catholic, he was oriented towards the priesthood, and, because of this, he was trained at Ushaw College (Durham) in classical studies.After a change of opinion, advised by his superiors, he later studied medicine, although without ever obtaining a degree, at Owens College in Manchester and in Glasgow.

Francis Thompson

A fervent Catholic, in love with literature and an independent character, he abandoned his family and studies when he realized that he was not understood in his aspirations, still unclear, and he went to London in 1885, where the failures of the various and humble occupations through which he tried to earn a living for four years (match-seller, horse-keeper, bookseller) threw him, because of the growing and bitter sadness of loneliness, the vice of opium, contracted after an illness.

On a piece of blue paper destined to wrap sugar he wrote his first poetry, Dream Encounter ( Dream Tryst , 1888), published by the spouses Meynell, of which the husband, Wilfrid, was editor-journalist and director of the newspaper Merry England , and the wife, Alice, poet and mother of seven children.The marriage in question welcomed and cared for Francis Thompson, who had come to see his entry into public libraries prevented (a truly tragic circumstance for the victim, who read Aeschylus, Blake and De Quincey all hours of the day).

The Meynell family kept him, not without difficulties, away from opium; "During the remaining nineteen years of his life-says biographer Francis Meynell, son of the famous marriage-he saved at least three-quarters of the hardships of his hungry and homeless youth." With the publication of three small volumes of verses, Poems (1893), dedicated to Alice Meynell; Sister Songs (1895), inspired by two girls from the marriage, and New Poems (1897), republished with some additions to the death of the poet, the success of the latter was becoming more established.

The Hound of Heaven , a work defined by Patmore as "one of the most illustrious odes in the English language", is undoubtedly the best of Francis Thompson; It is the religious poetry in which the mystical Catholicism appears most evident, not only of our author, but even of the entire poetic group of mystics of the century.Thompson's poetry, strongly influenced by Crashaw and the metaphysical concept of the seventeenth century, is characterized by a cosmic inspiration, whose central theme is the conception of the world, and has a polychrome of words, an abundance of images, musical tones and archaic or modern versification mastery that more than compensates for their apparent obscurity, their abstruse or confusing ideas and their persistence in the use of analogies and symbols.

The "poet of the return to God", given to eccentric neologisms, also wrote poetry of a very pure inspiration, beautiful in their intimate and reverent simplicity, like Daisy , To a Snow-Flake , In no Strange Land (many of them appeared posthumous) and To a fallen Yew , whose formal magnificence-judged baroque by some-is not limited to the poetic concept, but still attends to the smallest expressive details.

Also of remarkable beauty are the two essays on De Quincey and Shelley (posthumous, 1908) published in the course of their late collaboration in critical magazines.His synthetic judgment of Shelley-"to the end he was the enchanted boy"-seems perfectly applicable to Thompson himself, both naive and mature.Works of journalistic prose such as Salud y santidad ( Health and Holiness , 1905), on ascetic life, and biographies of Catholic figures such as Ignacio de Loyola (1909) and JB de la Salle (1911, already appeared in Merry England ), both posthumous, reveal how the abstract author, childish, shy and distressed by his practical incapacity, found refuge in faith, and not only as poet, but also as a man.

A little more or less since 1898 he lived an existence almost hermit in the Capuchin convent of Pantasaph, Wales; later it happened to Storrington.A victim of the excited tension and disorganization of her entire life, she died of tuberculosis.

Comments

Grace Querejeta Biography

Gracia Querejeta (Gracia Querejeta Marín; Madrid, 1962) Spanish film director.Daughter of the costume designer María del Carmen Marín Maiki and the film producer Elías Querejeta, she studied Geography and History at university and received a degree in Ancient History.Although she never wanted to be an actress, she had two circumstantial appearances in front of the cameras: the first, when she was only seven years old, in the film Las secretas intenciones by Antxon Eceiza, and the second when, at the age of thirteen., played a small role in Las Palabras de Max , by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro. Gracia Querejeta His first professional experience behind a Camera was as assistant director in Sweet hours (1981), directed by Carlos Saura and with his father as producer.After finishing his degree, he had the opportunity to direct Tres en la marca in 1988, as part of the collective project Seven footprints , with which he won the Arriaga Theater Award in Bilbao.The film Seven footp...

Arnold toynbee Biography

Arnold Toynbee (Arnold Joseph Toynbee; London, 1889-York, 1975) British philosopher and historian, considered one of the most important philosophers in history, achieved fame thanks to his 12 volumes of A study of History ( Study of History , 1934-1961). Toynbee, nephew of also historian Arnold Toynbee, studied primary school at Winchester Institute and entered the Balliol College of the University of Oxford in 1908, where he graduated in classics in 1911.Upon graduation, he spent a brief period of time at the British School in Athens, one of the contacts with the classical world that most It impressed young Toynbee, and it would have such an impact on his work. Arnold Toynbee He returned to London a year later, to take up the post of Associate Professor of Ancient History at Balliol College, Cambridge.There he remained until 1919, the year in which he was appointed Professor of Greek and Byzantine Studies at the University of London.In 1925, as the culmination of his acade...

Giambattista Tiepolo Biography

Giambattista Tiepolo (Giambattista or Giovanni Battista Tiepolo; Venice, 1696-Madrid, 1770) Italian painter.He studied the works of Sebastiano Ricci, Veronese and Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, and imitated the chromaticism, with its violent chiaroscuro effects, of the latter.In his early ceiling paintings (Archinti and Dugnani palaces in Milan) he reaffirmed his decorative talent, based on architectural perspectives, trompe-l'oeil paintings and moving crowds. His first important work, the decorative cycle of the archiepiscopal palace of Udine (1727-1728), composed of biblical narratives, already denotes in the conformation of the figures (of great naturalism) and in the composition of the same contributions from the artist himself, although certain influences from Sebastiano Ricci and Veronese are still detected. Feast of Antony and Cleopatra (c.1743), by Tiepolo In Milan he worked in the Clerici Palace; in Venice he did it in the Scalzi church and in the Labia palace.The...

The Spanish Aid in the Independence of the United States

In the history of Spain, has often forgotten relevant events , perhaps because of that character that we Spaniards have in general, of not knowing or wanting to defend our own history. sinking ships that were not as was the case with The USS Maine , all in the interest of the US in Cuba. the Spanish Republican troops were the first to enter Paris, freeing her from the Nazi invasion, another unknown piece of our history.In this article we will know the importance of Spain in the Independence of the US, c omo Espana I collaborate, because it did. A part of our history that we have titled The Spanish Aid in Independence of the United States. Art Index iculo The Spanish Aid in the Independence of the United States To place ourselves in the historical context, the formation of the United States is mainly due to the so-called group of the Thirteen Colonies . These 13 colonies of British origin, had been founded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, located ...

Names of Greek and Roman Goddesses

One of the features that has characterized man, since the dawn of humanity, is the need to believe .Explaining certain natural phenomena should not be an easy task, without having current knowledge.Storms, lightning, hail, earthworks, etc., all these phenomena that escaped our knowledge had to be produced by superior beings , beings with immense power of destruction, to those beings They were eventually given the category of Gods and Goddesses.All and each of the civilizations that have populated the earth have had their own deities, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc.Today we are going to dedicate this article to the Names of Greek and Roman Goddesses , let us know their names, who protected and to whom, what relationship existed between the Greek and Roman Goddesses. Index of the ar ticulo Names of Greek and Roman Goddesses | The Origin of the Gods «From the mass report (chaos) the Earth (Gea) and the Sky (Uranus) arose and both engendered the seven Titans» So desc...

Jan Hus Biography

Jan Hus (Also called John or John Huss; Husinec, Bohemia, 1369-Constance, 1415) Promoter of the Czech ecclesiastical reform.He was born into a poor peasant family in southwestern Bohemia.However, he managed to study Theology and Arts at the University of Prague and ordained himself a priest (1400).In 1402 he was appointed rector of the University, supported by the Czech particularist sentiment against Germanic domination. Jan Hus Under the influence of the English heretic John Wycliffe, Hus began in 1405 to preach against the excessive wealth of the Church and the immorality of the clergy, demanding a return to the purity of the evangelical message, preaching in the Czech language that the people could understand, and communion under both species.Its influence was increased by the crisis in which the Church of Rome was plunged by the "Schism of the West", as well as by the Czech nationalist reaction against the German minority (started with the struggle for control of ...

Florencio Harmodio Arosemena Biography

Florencio Harmodio Arosemena (Panama City, 1872-New York, 1945) Panamanian politician and engineer.He studied in Germany and directed important public works.A member of the Liberal Party, he was elected president in 1928 and dismissed on January 2, 1931 by the nationalist movement of Patriotic Communal Action, which brought the provisional government of Harmodio Arias to power.

Gustav Stresemann Biography

Gustav Stresemann (Berlin, 1878-1929) German politician of the Interwar period.Belonging to a family of beer entrepreneurs, he had studied economics and came to chair the Federation of Industrialists of Saxony (1902). Gustav Stresemann Then he launched into politics, in the ranks of the National-Liberal Party (later called the Popular Party), a right-wing, nationalist and expansionist group that it took a long time to accept the republican and democratic regime established by the Weimar Constitution (1919) and the Versailles Peace Treaty (1918) from which the new regime had been born.He gradually moderated his positions and led the party (which he had led since 1917) to accept the clauses of the Treaty most harmful to Germany, as a way to regain understanding with the Western powers and thus relaunch the country's economic and political influence abroad. In 1923 Gustav Stresemann was called to preside as Chancellor of the "grand coalition" of government that soug...

Josef Willem Mengelberg Biography

Josef Willem Mengelberg (Utrecht, 1871-Zuort, 1951) Dutch conductor.He studied in his hometown with Richard Hol, Henri Wilhelm Petri and Anton Averkamp and later moved to Cologne (Germany), in whose conservatory he studied theory and counterpoint with G.Jensen, piano with I.Seiss and organ with F.W.Franke, in addition to directing and composing with Franz Wüllner. He was musical director of the Lucerne Conservatory in 1892 and years later, in 1895, he obtained the position of director of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, a position he held until 1945.He also continued directing the Museum Concerts group in Frankfurt between 1907 and 1920.From 1899 he annually conducted the Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir in its interpretation of the Passion According to Saint Matthew by JS Bach. He also conducted the American National Symphony Orchestra in New York between 1920 and 1929 and was principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1921 until he left it due to differen...

Jose Risueño Biography

José Risueño (Granada, 1665- id ., 1732) Spanish sculptor and painter.Follower of A.Cano, P.de Mena and D.de Mora, he worked in Granada, where he made the figures of the chapel of the Sacrament of the Carthusian monastery, the San Juan de Dios of the church of San Matías and the Crucified Christ of Sacromonte.It is famous for its polychrome baked clay figurines ( Penitent Magdalene ).

History Today Online

Search This Blog