Mark Akenside

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Mark Akenside.

Mark Akenside (born November 9, 1721 in Newcastle upon Tyne , † June 23, 1770 in London ) was an English doctor, poet and author of a number of medical works.

Live and act

He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the second son of a butcher . His father Mark Akenside sen. was a member of a Presbyterian Church , his mother née Mary Lumsden. The couple had been married since August 10, 1710. He received his first education at the Royal Free Grammar School of Newcastle . Young Mark Akenside was injured in his foot when he was seven years old when a cleaver fell while playing in his father's butcher's shop . An injury that marked him for life.

First from 1738 he studied theology in Edinburgh . Akenside's studies were made possible through a fund to support young men with poor financial backgrounds to train him to become a Presbyterian priest . In the following winter of 1739 Akenside switched to medicine. In 1741 he went to Leyden ( Republic of the Seven United Provinces ) to expand his medical knowledge by three years later, on May 16, 1744, to receive his doctorate with the topic Dissertatio de ortu et incremento fetus humani . A topic that dealt with the growth of the human fetus . With the end of his medical studies in 1744 he left Leyden. He then practiced first in Northampton , Hampstead and finally in London . Its MD has been to him by the University of Cambridge awarded in 1753, as a member of the Royal College of Physicians he was taken on in the 1754th

One of the most notable poems of his time was The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744). Akenside wrote it at the age of twenty-three after a stay in Morpeth in 1738, where he came up with the idea of ​​a didactic poem, didactic poem . The later translation into French was done by Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach , a friend from Leiden times, in 1759. When Akenside presented his poem to the publisher Robert Dodsley (1704–1764) for the first time , he consulted his friend and poet and translator Alexander Pope to assess the literary merit of the work. He is reported to have said that Akenside is not an everyday writer .

Akenside died in his home on Burlington Street, London, where he had lived for the past ten years.

Works (selection)

medicine

  • Diss. De ortu et incremento fetus humani. Leyden, 1744
  • Diss. De dysenteria. London, 1764

poetry

  • A British Philippic. 1738
  • An Epistle to Curio. 1744
  • The Pleasures of Imagination. 1744
  • Friendship and Love. A Dialogue. 1745
  • Odes on several subjects. , 1745
  • An Ode to the Right Honorable the Earl of Huntingdon. 1748
  • An Ode to the Country Gentlemen of England. 1758
  • An Ode to the Late Thomas Edwards. 1766

literature

  • Rev. Alexander Dyce: The poetical works of Mark Akenside. HO Houghton, Riverside / Cambridge, 1834. Reprint Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library 2005, ISBN 1-4255-5116-5 .
  • Charles Bucke: On the life, writings, and genius of Akenside; with some account of his friends. London, 1832. Reprint Indypublish. Com, 2008, ISBN 1-4372-4352-5 .
  • Akenside, Mark . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 1:  Abbadie - Anne. MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1885, pp 208 - 211 (English).

Web links

Wikiquote: Mark Akenside  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ R. Dix: A newly discovered manuscript dedication by Mark Akenside. In: Medical history. Volume 53, Number 3, July 2009, pp. 425-432, PMID 19584961 , PMC 2706082 (free full text).
  2. ↑ Biography of Mark Akenside. (1721–1770 / England) PoemHunter.com
  3. ^ Mark Akenside - The Poet Surgeon From Newcastle
  4. ↑ English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser And The Tradition. Dr. Mark Akenside. William Clarke and Robert Shelton Mackenzie . In: The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain (1832-34) 3, pp. 342-344
  5. ^ August Ferdinand Brüggemann: Biography of the doctors. Volume 1. F. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1829, p. 47 f.
  6. ↑ Mark Curran: Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment in Pre-Revolutionary Europe. Royal Historical Society, London 2012, ISBN 0-86193-316-8 , p. 24.
  7. ↑ Akenside, Mark . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 1 : A-Androphagi . London 1910, p. 454 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
personal data
SURNAME Akenside, Mark
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor and poet
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1721
PLACE OF BIRTH Newcastle upon Tyne
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1770
Place of death London