Thomas Moore

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Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore, unknown painter

Thomas Moore ( Irish Tomás Ua Mórdha ; born May 28, 1779 in Dublin , † February 25, 1852 in Slopertone Cottage near Bromham , Wiltshire , England ) was an Irish poet, writer, translator and ballad singer.

Life

Moore's father came from a Catholic, Irish- speaking family in a Gaeltacht region in County Kerry ; his mother was from Wexford ; her name was Anastasia Codd. He grew up over his parents' shop on Aungier Street, Dublin. From 1795 he attended Trinity College in Dublin. Already during his law studies at Middle Temple in London , he made a name for himself as a singer of ballads he had composed himself and entered London society. He published his first volume of poetry in 1801 under the pseudonym Thomas Little . After completing his studies, he was sent to Bermuda as an administrative officer in 1803 and later to the USA and Canada. He processed the experiences of these trips in his work Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems .

In order to be back in England as soon as possible, he transferred his overseas activities to a deputy and traveled back to London. In 1811 he married the actress Elisabeth 'Bessy' Dyke there, with whom he had five children. Although his writing brought him good fees, he got into financial difficulties due to his expensive taste and lavish lifestyle. His situation was made more difficult by the considerable embezzlement of his deputy overseas, for which Moore was held liable. As a result, he had to leave England in 1819.

Moore moved to Paris and stayed there until 1822, when all of his debts were paid. During this time there were repeated exchanges between him and Lord Byron , with whom he had known for a long time. After Byron's death, Moore was appointed administrator of Byron's literary estate. As such, he was in charge of his as yet unpublished memoir, which he however destroyed at the instigation of the executor, which he was later accused of on many occasions. On the basis of these memoirs, Moore wrote a biography of Lord Byron, which is still valid today, until 1830: Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life .

After his return to England Moore settled in Sloperton Cottage near Bromham, Wiltshire and from now on devoted himself to his writing and poetry. He wrote novels, ballads, poetry cycles and biographies, which enjoyed great popularity. He also received a state pension, which saved him from further material difficulties throughout his life. But his private life was not spared from strokes of fate; the five children died while he was still alive. He later suffered a stroke, which from then on prevented him from performing in public - until then, Moore had been in great demand as a ballad singer of his own works. In 1852 Moore was buried in a crypt in St. Nicholas Church in Broham. A plaque on the house where he was born, a memorial in front of Trinity College in Dublin and one in Meeting Of The Waters remind of him today.

Memorial to Thomas Moore in Meeting Of The Waters

plant

Thomas Moore is often referred to as the Irish national poet. This is mainly due to the Irish Melodies , his most famous work cycle, which is still very popular in Ireland and England today. Around 1806 he was commissioned by the Dublin publishers William and James Power to write new texts for the General Collection of Ancient Irish Music compiled by Edward Bunting . The resulting new versions of the songs were then arranged for the piano by Sir John Stevenson. The publication of the ballads in 1808 was an instant success. Moore made the ballads even more popular by touring England and Ireland with them and performing them to his own piano accompaniment. The great success encouraged him to continue the work of Irish Melodies . The fourth volume appeared in 1811; In total, Moore was to publish ten volumes of Irish Melodies .

Moore's Irish Melodies let Ireland appear in a harmonious, romantic light, far removed from all violence and political disputes of the time. This earned him a lot of criticism. On the one hand, conservative critics in England feared that Moore's works might spark an uprising against the English crown. On the other hand, he was attacked by Irish nationalists who accused him of betraying the Irish cause by the euphemistic tone of his ballads. At times Moore was so criticized that he seriously considered quitting work on the Irish Melodies . In the end he decided to continue it after all, but to refrain from any political allusion in it.

Moore's 'oriental romance' Lalla Rookh (Persian for 'tulip cheek'), which he published in 1817 , also achieved great fame . The work was inspired by the then prevailing oriental craze and received accordingly enthusiastically. It is a cycle of oriental fairy tales (freely invented by Moore), which are held together by a framework plot. The work was translated into German by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in 1822 and subsequently also became a great success in German-speaking countries. Robert Schumann set one of the fairy tales to music in his oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri , published in 1843 , which he arranged together with his childhood friend Emil Flechsig . The text was completed in 1842.

Other well-known works by Moore include the satires The Twopenny Post Bag (1813) and The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), the verse epic The Loves of the Angels (1823) and the novel The Epicurean (1827). Poems by Thomas Moore have been set to music by a number of composers, including a. by Gaspare Spontini , Hector Berlioz , Charles Ives and William Bolcom .

Fonts

  • The Poetical Works of Thomas Little , 1801
  • Epistles, Odes and other Poems , 1806
  • Corruption and Intolerance , 1808
  • A Selection of Irish Melodies , 1808
  • Irish Melodies , 1808–1834, 10 volumes in total
  • The Twopenny Post Bag , 1813
  • Interceped Letters , 1813
  • Lalla Rookh: an Oriental Romance , 1817, online
  • The Fudge Family in Paris , 1818
  • The Loves of the Angels , 1823
  • Sacred Songs , 1816-1824
  • Memoirs of the Life of Sheridan , 1825
  • The Episcurean , 1827
  • Letters and Journals of Lord Byron , 1830, (German letters and diaries of Lord Byron , 1832, online )
  • Lord Edward Fitzgerald , 1831
  • Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of Religion , 1833, (German wanderings of an Irish nobleman to discover a religion , 1834, online )
  • The Fudges in England , 1835
  • The History of Ireland , 1835-1840

literature

German

  • Heiko Postma : »Last Rose of Summer«. Ireland's bard Thomas Moore (1779–1852) jmb, Hannover 2010.
  • Alois Stockmann: Thomas Moore, the Irish freedom singer. Herder, Freiburg 1910.

English

  • Stephen Gwynn: Thomas Moore. Macmillan, London 1905.
  • Howard Mumford Jones: The Harp That Once ... - A Chronicle of the Life of Thomas Moore. Holt, New York 1937.
  • Herbert O. Mackey: The life of Thomas Moore, Ireland's National poet. Holt, New York 1951.
  • T. de Vere White: Tom Moore: The Irish Poet. Hamilton, London 1977.
  • Leslie A. Marchand: Byron: A Portrait. Nurray, London 1993.
  • Jeffery W. Vail: The literary relationship of Lord Byron & Thomas Moore. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2001.
  • Francesca Benatti, Justin Tonra, Sean Ryder (Eds.): Thomas Moore: Texts, Contexts, Hypertext . Peter Lang, Oxford 2013.

Web links

Commons : Thomas Moore  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Moore, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish poet
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1779
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1852
Place of death Bromham , Wiltshire