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THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES (1803-1849)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 615 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THOMAS See also:LOVELL See also:BEDDOES (1803-1849)  , See also:English dramatist and poet, son of the physician, See also:Thomas See also:Beddoes, was See also:born at See also:Clifton on the loth of See also:July 1803 . His See also:mother was a See also:sister of Maria See also:Edgeworth, the novelist . He was sent to See also:Bath See also:grammar school and then to the See also:Charterhouse . At school he wrote a See also:good See also:deal of See also:verse and a novel in See also:imitation of See also:Fielding . In 182o he was entered at See also:Pembroke See also:College, See also:Oxford, and in his first See also:year published The See also:Improvisatore, afterwards carefully suppressed, and in 1822 The See also:Bride's Tragedy, which showed him as the See also:disciple of the later Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists . The See also:play found a small circle of admirers, and procured for Beddoes the friendship of See also:Bryan See also:Waller See also:Procter (See also:Barry See also:Cornwall) . Beddoes retired to See also:Southampton to read for his degree, and there Procter introduced him to a See also:young lawyer, Thomas See also:Forbes Kelsall, with whom he became very intimate, and who becamehis biographer and editor . At this See also:time he composed the dramatic fragments of The Second See also:Brother and Torrismond . Unfortunately he lacked the See also:power of constructing a See also:plot, and seemed to suffer from a constitutional inability to finish any-thing . Beddoes was one of the first outside the limited circle of See also:Shelley's own See also:friends to recognize Shelley's See also:genius, and he was certainly one of the earliest imitators of his lyrical method . In the summer of 1824 he was summoned to See also:Florence by the illness of his mother, but she died before he arrived . He remained some time in See also:Italy, and met Mrs Shelley and See also:Walter See also:Savage See also:Landor before he returned to See also:England .

In 1825 he took his degree at Oxford, and in that year he began what he calls (Letters, p . 68) " a very See also:

Gothic styled tragedy " with " a See also:jewel of a name." This See also:work was completed in 1829 as the fantastic and incoherent See also:drama, See also:Death's Jest See also:Book or The See also:Fool's Tragedy; but he continued to revise it until his death, and it was only published posthumously . On leaving Oxford he decided to study See also:anatomy and See also:physiology, not, however, without some See also:hope that his studies might, by increasing his knowledge of the human mechanism, further his efforts as a dramatist . In the autumn of 1825 he entered on his studies at See also:Gottingen, where he remained for four years . In 1829 he removed to See also:Wurzburg, and in 1832 obtained his doctorate in See also:medicine, but his intimate association with democratic and republican leaders in See also:Germany and Switzer-See also:land forced him to leave See also:Bavaria without receiving his diploma . He settled in See also:Zurich, where he practised for some time as a physician, and was even elected to be See also:professor of See also:comparative anatomy at the university, but the authorities refused to ratify his See also:appointment because of his revolutionary views . He frequently contributed See also:political poems and articles to See also:German and Swiss papers, but none of his German work has been identified . The years at Zurich seem to have been the happiest of his See also:life, but in 1839 the See also:anti-liberal riots in the See also:town rendered it unsafe for him, and See also:early in the next year he had to See also:escape secretly . From this time he had no settled See also:home, though he stored his books at See also:Baden in See also:Aargau . His See also:long See also:residence in Germany was only broken by visits to England in 1828 to take his See also:master of arts degree, in 1835, in 1842 and for some months in 1846 . He had adopted German thought and See also:manners to such an extent that he hardly See also:felt at home in England; and his study of the German See also:language, which he had begun in 1825, had almost weaned him from his mother-See also:tongue; he was, as he says in a See also:letter, " a non-conductor of friendship "; and it is not surprising that his old friends found him much changed and See also:eccentric . In 1847 he returned to See also:Frankfort, where he lived with a See also:baker called Degen, to whom he became much attached, and whom he persuaded to become an actor .

He took Degen with him to Zurich, where he chartered the See also:

theatre for one See also:night to give his friend a See also:chance of playing Hotspur . The two separated at See also:Basel, and in a See also:fit of dejection (May 1848) Beddoes tried to bleed himself to death . He was taken to the See also:hospital, and wrote to his friends in England that he had had a fall from horseback . His See also:leg was amputated, and he was in a See also:fair way to recovery when, on the first See also:day he was allowed to leave the hospital, he took curare, from the effects of which he died on the 26th of See also:January 1849 . His See also:MSS. he See also:left in the See also:charge of his friend Kelsall . In one of his letters to Kelsall Beddoes wrote:—" I am convinced the See also:man who is to awaken the drama must be a bold, trampling See also:fellow—no creeper into See also:worm-holes—no reviser even -however good . These reanimations are See also:vampire See also:cold . Such ghosts as Marloe, See also:Webster, &c., are better dramatists, better poets, I dare say, than any contemporaries of ours—but they are ghosts—the worm is in their pages " (Letters, p . 5o) . In spite of this See also:wise See also:judgment, Beddoes was himself a " creeper into worm-holes," a See also:close imitator of See also:Marston and of See also:Cyril See also:Tourneur, especially in their See also:familiar handling of the phenomena of death, and in the remoteness from See also:ordinary life of the passions portrayed . In his See also:blank verse he caught to a certain degree the manner of his Jacobean See also:models, and his verse abounds in beautiful imagery, but his Death's Jest Book is only finished in the sense of having five acts completed; it remains a bizarre See also:production which appeals to few minds, and to them rather for the occasional excellence of the See also:poetry than as an entire See also:composition . His lyrics show the See also:influence of Shelley as well as the study of 17th-See also:century models, but they are by no means See also:mere imitations, and some of them, like the " See also:Dirge for Wolfram " (" If See also:thou wilt ease thy See also:heart "), and " See also:Dream Pedlary " (" If there were dreams to sell "), are among the most exquisite of 19th-century lyrics .

Kelsall published Beddoes' See also:

great work, Death's Jest Book: or, The Fool's Tragedy, in 185o . The drama is based on the See also:story that a certain See also:Duke Boleslaus of See also:Munsterberg was stabbed by his See also:court-fool, the " Isbrand " of the play (see C . F . Floegel, Geschichte der Hofnarren, See also:Leipzig, 1789, pp . 297 et seq.) . He followed this in 1851 with Poems of the See also:late Thomas See also:Lovell Beddoes, to which a memoir was prefixed . The two volumes were printed together (1851) with the See also:title of Poems, See also:Posthumous and Collected . MI these volumes are very rare . Kelsall bequeathed the Beddoes MSS. to See also:Robert See also:Browning, with a See also:note stating the real See also:history of Beddoes' illness and death, which was kept back out of See also:consideration for his relatives . Browning is reported to have said that if he were ever Professor of Poetry his first lecture would be on Beddoes, " a forgotten Oxford poet." Mr See also:Edmund See also:Gosse obtained permission to use the documents from Browning, and edited a See also:fuller selection of the Poetical See also:Works (2 vols., 189o) for the " See also:Temple Library," supplying a full See also:account of his life . He also edited the Letters of Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1894), containing a selection from his See also:correspondence, which is full of gaiety and contains much amusing See also:literary See also:criticism . See also the edition of Beddoes by See also:Ramsay Colles in the " See also:Muses' Library " (1906) .

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