Edward Dowden

Edward Dowden, around 1874

Edward Dowden (born May 3, 1843 in Cork , † April 4, 1913 in Dublin ) was an Irish literary historian and poet.

life and work

Edward Dowden was a son of the merchant and landowner John Wheeler Dowden and a younger brother of the future Bishop of Edinburgh, John Dowden . He showed literary interests at an early age by writing several essays around the age of 12. After receiving private tuition, he continued his education at Queen's College in Cork and then studied at Trinity College Dublin . At the latter institute he became President of the Philosophical Society , won the Rector's Prize for English Poetry and Prose, and in 1867, at the age of 24, was appointed professor of English literature and eloquence.

Dowden excelled in particular with fundamental research on Shakespeare . He already took up this topic in his first book, Shakspere: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (1875; 5th edition 1880; German by Wilhelm Wagner, Shakspere, his development in his works , Heilbronn 1879) , which was a revision of a series of lectures in which he tried to give a rounded picture of Shakespeare's development as an artist. It made him widely known as a critic. In 1877 he published Shakespeare primer , which was translated into German and Italian and was also intended for non-academic readers. In 1878 the Royal Irish Academy awarded him the Cunningham Gold Medal for his literary services, in particular for his critical statements on Shakespeare . He later edited Shakespeare's sonnets (1881), Passionate Pilgrim (1883), Hamlet (1899), Romeo and Juliet (1900) and Cymbeline (1903) and also wrote an introduction to International Shakespeare (1887) and the Introduction to Shakespeare (1893) ).

A volume of deeply inner poems (1876) comes from Dowden's early creative period . His critical essays Studies in Literature (1878; 3rd edition 1887), Transcripts and Studies (1888) and New Studies in Literature (1895; new edition 1902) show his in-depth knowledge of literary currents in different countries and ages. He wrote several biographies, of which his Life of Shelley (2 vols., 1886) made him widely known. In 1900 he also got an edition of Shelley's works.

Dowden also wrote a book on Robert Southey (in the English Men of Letters series , 1879), whose correspondence with his bride he published as Southey's Correspondence with Anne Bowles (1881) and selected works as Select Poems of Southey (1895). He also edited the correspondence of the English playwright Henry Taylor ( Correspondence of Sir Henry Taylor , 1888) and William Wordsworth's Poetical Works (1892) and Lyrical Ballads (1890). His literary interests also reveal his works French Revolution and English Literature (1897; including lectures given at Princeton University in 1896), History of French Literature (1897), Puritan and Anglican (1900), Robert Browning (1904) and Michel de Montaigne ( 1905). Because of his fondness for Goethe he succeeded Friedrich Max Müller as President of the English Goethe Society in 1888 , which post he held until 1890. In 1890 he provided an introduction to the edition of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister .

In 1889, Dowden was the first lecturer in the annual Taylorian Lecture series held at Oxford University , dealing with the subject of “Literary Criticism in France”. 1892-1896 he was a lecturer at Trinity College Cambridge . Thanks to his astute research, the first presentation of Thomas Carlyle's Lectures on periods of European culture and the identification of Shelley as the author of a report (in The Critical Review of December 1814) on a lost novel by the Scottish poet James Hogg , a description of Shelley's Philosophical View of Reform and the discovery of a handwritten diary by Fabre d'Églantine and a note by Doctor Wilhelm Weissenborn on Goethe's last days and death. He also found A Narrative of a Prisoner of War under Napoleon (published in Blackwood's Magazine ), an unknown pamphlet by Bishop George Berkeley , some unedited writings by the English author William Hayley on William Cowper, and a unique copy of the Tales of Terror .

As Education Commissioner in Ireland (1896-1901), Curator of the Irish National Library , Secretary of the Irish Liberal Union and Vice President of the Irish Unionist Alliance, Dowden pushed the view that literature should not be separated from practical life.

Dowden, who was one of the first to pay tribute to the American poet Walt Whitman , was married twice, first since 1866 to Mary Clerke and then since 1895 to Elizabeth Dickinson West, daughter of the Dean of St. Patrick. He died in 1913 at the age of almost 70. His daughter from his first marriage, Hester Dowden (1868–1949), was a well-known spiritualist medium.

literature

• Dowden, Edward . In: Brockhaus' Konversationslexikon . 14th Edition, 1894-1896, Vol. 5, p. 471 ( online ).
• Dowden, Edward . In: Encyclopædia Britannica , 11th edition, 1910-1911, Vol. 8, pp. 456f.

Web links

Commons : Edward Dowden  - Album containing pictures, videos and audio files