Roden Noel

Roden Noel at the age of 34

Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel (also Noël ; born August 27, 1834 in London , † May 26, 1894 in Mainz ) was a British poet and essayist.

Life

Noel comes from the English and Irish nobility. He was the fourth son of Charles Noel, Lord Barham (1781-1866), for whom the title Earl of Gainsborough was created in 1841 . His mother was his fourth wife, Frances, b. Jocelyn, daughter of Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden . Due to the influence of his mother and her family, Roden Noel felt himself to be Irish throughout his life. Although he grew up in the Exton Park family home in Rutland , England , he also spent some time with his maternal grandfather in Tollymore Park , King's County , in northern Ireland .

Noel attended 1847-1849 the prestigious private school Harrow School in north-west London, after five years was long private lessons in Wiltshire and began in 1854 his studies at Trinity College of Cambridge University with the goal of becoming a clergyman. After graduating with a master's degree , in 1858 he decided not to pursue a church career and went on a trip to the Orient. He spent a long time with his friend Horatio F. Brown in the Libyan desert , where he suffered severe heat damage. In Beirut he was nursed back to health with the family of the director of the Ottoman bank there, de Broë. On March 21, 1863, he married the eldest daughter Alice Maria Caroline de Broë in All Souls Church, Langham Place , London. He then moved with his wife to the London borough of Kew . The couple had three children: Frances (* 1864), Conrad le Despenser Roden (* 1869) and Eric (* 1871). Noel was arguably bisexual; In any case, he made no secret of his homosexual tendencies.

In 1863 Noel published his first literary work, the collection of poems Behind the Veil, and other Poems . From 1867 he held the office of "Groom of the Privy Chamber" at the court of his godmother Queen Victoria , but left the court in 1871 to begin a career as a businessman. This attempt failed, however, and from then on he devoted himself exclusively to poetry and philosophy. He also became known as a philanthropist, and because of a lot of help for the poor, he even received the honorable nickname “The Children's Knight”. His political attitudes were progressively liberal to democratic; Socialist ideas remained alien to him, especially since he particularly valued eccentricity and individuality.

Noel's son Eric died of rheumatic fever at the age of five . Under the impression of this death, he wrote the volume of poetry A Little Child's Monument , which processed memories of the son and was published in three editions from 1881.

Noel was acquainted with many well-known poets and thinkers of his time; Correspondence with the writers Alfred Lord Tennyson (who adored Noel's poetry), Robert Browning , and Thomas Hardy , among others , as well as an exchange of letters with statesman William Ewart Gladstone have been preserved .

Noel lived in Brighton for the last few years of his life . In 1894 he died on a trip to his sister-in-law, who lived in Stuttgart, when he suffered a heart attack while changing trains at Mainz main station . His grave is in the main cemetery in Mainz .

His son Conrad Noel was a pastor and later became known as "The Turbulent Priest of Thaxted" because of his revolutionary attitudes.

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Roden Noel's signature

Noel was admired for his enthusiasm, his empathy with nature, which he revered up to pantheism , and the philosophical tone of his poems. His early works, such as the collection of poems Beatrice, and other Poems , are heavily influenced by the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley . His poems were criticized because of their sometimes absurd subject matter. Many contemporaries also disliked the overloaded, ill-balanced, often overly coarse or overly sweet style and the large scope of his works.

In addition to many volumes of poetry, he also wrote an ambitious five-act verse drama The House of Ravensburg , an epic about David Livingstone's expedition in Africa and a biography of Lord Byron. His adaptation of the Faust material from 1888 is an unusual mixture of poetry, dramatic dialogue and philosophy in prose. Noel's most successful work, however, remained the rather simple, personal volume of poetry A Little Child's Monument .

In addition, Noel also emerged as an essayist with literary and philosophical topics. His Essays upon Poetry and Poets from 1886 are a collection of essays on Thomas Chatterton , Lord Byron , Percy B. Shelley, William Wordsworth , John Keats , Victor Hugo , Alfred Lord Tennyson and Walt Whitman . Towards the end of his life he gave many lectures on literary subjects, the proceeds of which he donated to charity. His poem "Sea Slumber Song" was set to music by the composer Sir Edward Elgar in his work "Sea Pictures, op. 137".

Works

• Behind the Veil, and other Poems , 1863
• Beatrice, and other Poems , 1868
• The Red Flag, and other Poems , 1872
• Livingstone in Africa , 1874
• The House of Ravensburg , 1877
• A Little Child's Monument , 1881
• A Philosophy of immortality , 1882
• Songs of the Heights and Deeps , 1885
• A Modern Faust, and other Poems , 1888
• Life of Lord Byron , 1890
• Poor People's Christmas , 1890

• My Sea, and other Poems , 1896

Editing:

• Edmund Spenser : Poems , 1887
• Thomas Otway : Plays , 1888

Collections:

• Essays upon Poetry and Poets , 1886
• Poems , ed. by Robert Buchanan, 1893
• Selected poems , ed. by Percy Addleshaw, 1897
• Collected Poems , ed. by Noel's sister Victoria Buxton, 1902

literature

• Desmond Heath: Roden Noel, 1834-1894. A wide angle. A background to Noel's life and work, featuring his poetry, his philosophy, correspondance with Tennyson, Browning, Hardy, and others, plus reminiscences of Noel's son, Conrad, the 'rebel priest' of Thaxted . DB Books, London 1998, ISBN 0-9532496-0-3
• Jessica Hinings: Noel, Roden Berkeley Wriothesley (1834–1894) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

Web links

• Roden Noel: A Legacy of Words (English)
• Rictor Norton: Naked as Bacchus - Roden Noel (English)