Thomas Urquhart (Author)
Sir Thomas Urquhart (* 1611 ; † 1660 ) was a Scottish poet and translator. He translated Rabelais into English. Urquhart allegedly died in the wake of a laughing fit that he allegedly suffered when he was told that Charles II had come to power.
Life
Born in Cromarty in 1611 , Urquhart attended Kings College in Aberdeen from the age of eleven. He later traveled to France, Spain and Italy before returning to Scotland in 1636. A staunch royalist, he entered the army of Charles I and fought the Presbyterian Covenanters in Turriff in 1639 . Since his army was defeated, Urquhart was forced to flee to London where he was knighted in 1641 .
In 1649 the royalist opposed Oliver Cromwell : Urquhart was therefore arrested after the Battle of Worcester in 1651 and his family property in Cromarty was confiscated.
plant
Many of his works are eccentric, written in apparently incomprehensible and seemingly ridiculous language. Trissotetras from 1645 was a mathematical work, referring to the work of John Napier and his theory of logarithms. In his work Pantochronochanon of 1652 he tried to trace his ancestry back to Adam . In his work Logopandecteision from 1653, Urquhart suggested a universal language , but did not elaborate on the vocabulary. His novel entitled Ekskybalauron which he published in 1652 is considered to be one of the oldest Scottish novels; his protagonist is Crichton , who is based on the real James Crichton (1560–1582).
Urquhart is also known for his translation of the work Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais .
Works
- 1641: Epigrams, Divine and Moral
- 1645: Trissotetras
- 1652: Pantochronachanon
- 1652: The Jewel (Ekskybalauron) ISBN 0707303273
- 1653: Logopandecteision
- 1653: The Works of Rabelais [Translation]
Web links
- Literature by and about Thomas Urquhart in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ John Willcock: Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie Knight . Oliphant, Edinburgh & London, 1899, p. 97.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Urquhart, Thomas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish poet and translator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1611 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1660 |