William Barnes (poet)
William Barnes (born February 22, 1801 at Sturminster Newton , Dorset , † October 7, 1886 in Winterborne Came , Dorset) was an English dialect poet, writer and philologist.
Life
William Barnes came from a poor farming family. From 1823 he worked as a teacher at various country schools in Dorset. Until 1837 he took to study theology at St John's College of Cambridge University and gained there the degree of Bachelor. In 1847 he was assistant minister at Whitcombe, Dorset, and in 1862 pastor of Winterbourne Came in the Diocese of Salisbury . From 1861 he moved into a pension from the royal civil list.
Poetic work
His first volume of poems, Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect , appeared in 1844. Over the next few decades he published a large number of poems, many in the dialect of his home county of Dorset, in which he vividly described the life of the rural population; his dialect seals also includes a paraphrase of the Song of Solomon ( Song of Solomon in the Dorset dialect , 1859). His poems were appreciated by many literary greats of the day, such as Tennyson and Gerard Manley Hopkins . Barnes had a great influence above all on Thomas Hardy , who also documented the rural life of the region in his numerous novels and poems - when he called it Wessex instead of Dorset .
Philological work
In addition to poetry and numerous articles in newspapers and magazines, he also published a large number of philological works, including a comparative grammar of the English language with examples from over 60 different languages. ( A philological grammar, grounded upon English and formed from a comparison of more than 60 languages etc. , 1854). He also campaigned vehemently to “cleanse the English language of borrowings from foreign languages.” So he suggested replacing the Greek-born photograph with sun-print ; other “ Saxon ” word creations he suggested are wortlore (instead of botany , “ Botany ”) and welkinfire (instead of meteor ).
literature
- Alan Chedzoy: The People's Poet: William Barnes of Dorset . The History Press, Stroud 2010, ISBN 978-0-7524-5538-9 .
- Barnes, William . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 3 : Austria - Bisectrix . London 1910, p. 413 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Barnes, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English writer, dialect poet and philologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 22, 1801 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | at Sturminster Newton , Dorset |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 7, 1886 |
| Place of death | Winterborne Came , Dorset |