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Edition 47

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ON POETS AND WRITERS

Poetry is something one appreciates and enjoys although sometimes not understood and very often ignored, but on reading about poets and writers themselves many seem a race apart, both complex and interesting. They do appear to be prone to sad or violent lives and in some cases even violent deaths as in the following.

The Roman orator Licero, who attacked his friend Mark Antony in a series of speeches, was declared an outlaw and after capture was killed - then had his head and hand displayed in Rome as a reminder to all and sundry not to speak or write against Antony.

On a less gory note is that of Daniel Defoe, a person with a prolific literary output, who was pilloried 3 times for his writings but who died in abject poverty.

Another brilliant poet, Voltaire, was jailed in the Bastille for his attack on political intrigue!

The Gutenberg Bible made its creator, Johann Gutenberg, bankrupt and he died destitute and forgotten. Some copies of his Bible still survive and are worth many millions of £’s today.

Arnold Bennett, the English novelist, died through an act of bravado. When visiting Paris, whilst attempting to show that the city’s water was safe to drink, he took a drink from a carafe in his hotel, caught typhoid and died shortly afterwards.

John Bunyan was held in Bedford County Jail for his non-conformist writings; Oscar Wilde was also jailed, although not exactly because of his writings, but his witticisms are still quoted today.

There is of course, Lord Byron, said by his mistress Lady Caroline Lamb, to be “Mad, bad and dangerous to know”. He achieved world wide fame initially through his “Childe Harold”. He joined the Greek Revolutionary Committee fighting against the Turks but whilst there he contracted marsh fever and died aged 36.

Of all these flamboyant people none came from a more eccentric family than that of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. His father was a violent drunkard who terrified the neighbourhood and was restrained from murdering one of his sons. Of his 12 children two were insane, one was a drug addict, one was an alcoholic, one was as bad as his father and all were subject to fits of depression and religious mania. Despite this background, Tennyson produced some of the most popular poems of the 19th century, including “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “The Idylls of the King”. After reading of the mad exploits of this family and the awful life they lived my final thought was - what of his poor mother?

There are many more tales to relate but I am sure that eventually some of the modern writers will add to this list of outrageous and independent thinkers and doers.

BETTY MURDOCH