Thomas Moore

Stephen Gwynn

Description

Irish-born poet and lyricist Thomas Moore arose from a working-class background to make a name for himself as one of the foremost figures in the Gaelic cultural revival that began to take hold in the early nineteenth century. Stephen Gwynn's comprehensive biography of Moore traces his unlikely trajectory from grocer's son to a looming figure in Irish literary and popular culture.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776584093
• Langue: English

Extrait

THOMAS MOORE
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STEPHEN GWYNN
 
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Thomas Moore First published in 1905 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-409-3 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-410-9 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I - Boyhood and Early Poems Chapter II - Early Manhood and Marriage Chapter III - Lalla Rookh Chapter IV - Period of Residence Abroad Chapter V - Work as Biographer and Controversialist Chapter VI - The Decline of Life Chapter VII - General Appreciation Appendix Endnotes
Chapter I - Boyhood and Early Poems
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Sudden fame, acquired with little difficulty, suffers generally a periodof obscuration after the compelling power which attaches to a man'sliving personality has been removed; and from this darkness it does notalways emerge. Of such splendour and subsequent eclipse, Moore's fatemight be cited as the capital example.
The son of a petty Dublin tradesman, he found himself, almost from hisfirst entry on the world, courted by a brilliant society; each yearadded to his friendships among the men who stood highest in literatureand statesmanship; and his reputation on the Continent was surpassedonly by that of Scott and Byron. He did not live to see a reaction. LordJohn Russell could write boldly in 1853, a year after his friend'sdeath, that "of English lyrical poets, Moore is surely the greatest."There is perhaps no need to criticise either this attitude of excessiveadmiration, or that which in many cases has replaced it, of tolerantcontempt. But it is as well to emphasise at the outset the fact thateven to-day, more than a century after he began to publish, Moore isstill one of the poets most popular and widely known throughout theEnglish-speaking world. His effect on his own race at least has beendurable; and if it be a fair test of a poet's vitality to ask how muchof his work could be recovered from oral tradition, there are not manywho would stand it better than the singer of the Irish Melodies. Atleast the older generation of Irishmen and Irishwomen now living havehis poetry by heart.
The purpose of this book is to give, if possible, a just estimate of theman's character and of his work as a poet. The problem, so far as thebiographical part is concerned, is not to discover new material but toselect from masses already in print. The Memoirs of his Life, edited byLord John Russell, fill eight volumes, though the life with which theydeal was neither long nor specially eventful. In addition we haveallusions to Moore, as a widely known social personage, in almost everymemoir of that time; and newspaper references by thousands have beencollected. These extraneous sources, however, add very little to theimpression which is gained by a careful reading of the correspondenceand of the long diaries in which Moore's nature, singularly unsecretive,displays itself with perfect frankness. Whether one's aim be to justifyMoore or to condemn him, the most effective means are provided by hisown words; and for nearly everything that I have to allege in thenarrative part of this work, Moore, himself is the authority. Nor is thecritical estimate which has to be put forward, though remote from thatof Moore's official biographer, at all unlike that which the poethimself seems to have formed of his work.
Thomas Moore was born in Dublin on the 28th of May 1779, at No. 12Aungier Street, where his father, a native of Kerry, kept a grocer'sshop. His mother, Anastasia Clodd, was the daughter of a small provisionmerchant in Wexford. Moore was their eldest child, and of the brothersand sisters whom he mentions, only two girls, his sisters Katherine andEllen, appear to have grown up or to have played any part in his life.His parents were evidently prosperous people, devoted to their cleverboy and ambitious to secure him social promotion by giving scope to thetalents which he showed from his early schooldays. The memoir of hisyouth, which Moore wrote in middle life, notes the special pleasurewhich his mother took in the friendship of a certain Miss Dodd, anelderly maiden lady moving in "a class of society somewhat of a higherlevel than ours"; and it is easy enough to understand why the precociousimp of a boy found favour with this distinguished person and her guests.He had all the gifts of an actor and a mimic, and they were encouragedin him first at home, and then at the boarding-school to which he wassent. Samuel Whyte, its head master, had been the teacher of Sheridan,and though he discovered none of Sheridan's abilities, the connectionwith the Sheridan family, added to his own tastes, had brought him intoclose touch with the stage. He was the author of a didactic poem on "TheTheatre," a great director of private theatricals, and a teacher ofelocution. Such a man was not likely to neglect the gifts of the cleversmall boy entrusted to him, and Master Moore, at the age of eleven,already figured on the playbill of some important private theatricals asreciting the Epilogue. He was encouraged also in the habit of rhyming, ahabit that reached back as far as he could remember; and before hisfifteenth year was far gone, he attained to the honours of print in acreditable magazine, the Anthologia Hibernica . The first of hiscontributions was an amatory address to a Miss Hannah Byrne, herself, itappears, a poetess. The lines, "To Zelia on her charging the Author withwriting too much on love," need not be quoted (though the subject ischaracteristic), nor the "Pastoral Ballad" which followed in the numberfor October 1793. It is worth noting, however, that in 1794 we findMoore paraphrasing Anacreon's Fifth Ode; and further that in March ofthe same year he is acknowledging his debt to Mr. Samuel Whyte withverses beginning
"Hail heaven-taught votary of the laurel'd Nine"
—an unusual form of address from a schoolboy to his pedagogue.
Briefly, one gathers the impression that Moore's schooldays wereenlivened by many small gaieties, while his holidays abounded with thesame distractions. The family was sent down to Sandymount, now a suburb,but then a seaside village on Dublin Bay, and there, in addition tosea-bathing, they had their fill of mild play-acting. Moore reproducessome lines from an epilogue written for one of these occasions when thereturn to school was imminent:—
"Our Pantaloon that did so agéd look Must now resume his youth, his task, his book; Our Harlequin who skipp'd, leap'd, danced, and died, Must now stand trembling by his tutor's side."
And he notes genially how the pathos of his farewell nearly moved him totears as he recited the closing words—doubtless with a thrillingtremble in his accents. Moore was always [greek: artidakrous ]. But hewas a healthy, active youngster, and we read that he emulated Harlequinin jumping talents, as well as in the command of tears and laughter; andpractised over the rail of a tent-bed till he could at last "perform theheadforemost leap of his hero most successfully."
School made little break in these pleasures; for while the family wereat the seaside, his indulgent father provided the boy with a pony onwhich he rode down every Saturday to stay over the Sunday; "and at thehour when I was expected, there generally came my sister with a numberof young girls to meet me, and full of smiles and welcomes, walked bythe side of my pony into the town." Never was a boy more petted. Aboutthis time, too, his musical gifts began to be discovered; for Mrs. Mooreinsisted that her daughter Katherine should be taught not only theharpsichord, but also the piano, and that a piano should be bought. Onthis instrument Moore taught himself to play; and since his mother had apleasant voice and a talent for giving gay little supper-parties,musical people used to come to the house, and the boy had plenty ofchances for showing off his accomplishments, accompanying himself, anddeveloping already his uncanny knack of dramatic singing.
A young gentleman thus brought up was, one would say, in a fair way tobe spoiled, and Moore, looking back, is quick to recognise the danger.Yet he is fully justified in the comment which closes his narrative ofthe triumphant entries into Sandymount with schoolgirls escorting hispony:—
"There is far more of what is called vanity in my now reporting the tribute, than I felt then in receiving it; and I attribute very much to the cheerful and kindly circumstances which thus surrounded my childhood, that spirit of enjoyment and, I may venture to add, good temper, which has never, thank God, failed me to the present time (July 1833)."
Moreover, if his parents were interested in his pleasures, they were noless concerned about his work. His mother, he writes, examined him dailyin his studies; sometimes even, when kept out late at a party, she wouldwake the boy out of his sleep in the small hours of morning, and bid himsit up and repeat over his lessons. Her affectionate care met with thatreturn from her son which was continued to the end of her life. Therewas nothing in his power that Moore would not do to please his mother.
Nevertheless, touching as the relation was, it had its weak side, andMoore in time realised it. In a notable passage of his diary, whichdescribes the pleasant days spent by him at Abbotsford in 1825, we readhow he congratulated Scott on the advantages of his upbringing—theopen-air life, field sports, and free intercourse with the peasantry.
"I said that the want of this manly training showed itself in my poetry, which wo