William Tennant

William Tennant (born May 18, 1784 in Anstruther , Fife , † February 14, 1848 in Devon Grove ) was a Scottish scholar and poet .

Life

Tennant was lame from childhood . His father sent him to the University of St Andrews , where he stayed for two years. After his return, he was writer one of his brothers, a corn - manufacturers . In his spare time he learned Hebrew , German and Italian .

His study of Italian verse bore fruit in the mocking heroic poem Anster Fair (1812), an amusing depiction of the wedding of Maggie Lauder, the heroine of the popular Scottish ballad . It was written in punching and adopted a few years later by John Hookham Frere for The Ingenious Brothers Whistlecraft and by Byron as a character in Don Juan . The poem in the form of fantastic, classical allusions applied as a simple story and full of humor met with immediate success. It was the first use of this Italian style in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Tennant's brother had since failed commercially and William Tennant was schoolmaster of the parish of Dunino near St Andrews in 1812 . From 1816 on he received his doctorate from the Lasswade School near Edinburgh ; from 1819 studied for a master's examination at the Dollar Academy and from 1834 onwards with Lord Jeffrey from the chair of oriental languages at the University of St. Andrews to a professorship , after having mastered Hebrew as well as Arabic and Persian . The Thane of Fife (1822) displayed the same humorous imagination as Anster Fair , but the poem was of poor general interest and sold poorly.

He also wrote a poem in Lowland Scottish , Papistry Stormed (1827); two historical dramas, Cardinal Beaton (1823) and John Balliol (1825), and a series of Hebrew dramas (1845) based on Bible stories . Tennant died in Devon Grove on February 14, 1848 . His memoir was published by MF Connolly in 1861.

Footnotes

1. ↑ The Harmsworth Encyclopedia 1905