Значение слова WARTON в Литературной энциклопедии

WARTON

1) JOSEPH (1722-1800).-Critic, elder _s._ of the Rev. Thomas W., Prof. of Poetry at Oxf., was _ed._ at Basingstoke School, (of which his _f._ was headmaster), Winchester, and Oxf. He took orders, held various benefices, and became headmaster of Winchester Coll., and Prebendary of Winchester and of St. Paul's. He _pub._ miscellaneous verses, 2 vols. of _Odes_ (1744 and 1746), in which he displayed a then unusual feeling for nature, and revolted against the critical rules of Pope and his followers. He was a good classical scholar, and made an approved translation of the _Eclogues_ and _Georgics_ of Virgil. He and his brother Thomas (_q.v._) were friends of Johnson, and members of the Literary Club. His last work of importance was an _Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope_, of which the first vol. appeared in 1757, and the second in 1782, and which gave an impulse to the romantic movement in English literature. He also ed. Pope's works, and had begun an ed. of Dryden when he _d._ 2) WARTON, THOMAS (1728-1790).-Literary historian and critic, younger _s._ of Thomas W., Prof. of Poetry at Oxf., and brother of the above, was _ed._ under his _f._ at Basingstoke and at Oxf. At the age of 19 he _pub._ a poem of considerable promise, _The Pleasures of Melancholy_, and two years later attracted attention by _The Triumph of Isis_ (1749), in praise of Oxf., and in answer to Mason's _Isis_. After various other poetical excursions he _pub._ _Observations on Spenser's Faery Queen_ (1754), which greatly increased his reputation, and in 1757 he was made Prof. of Poetry at Oxf., which position he held for 10 years. After bringing out one or two ed. of classics and biographies of college benefactors, he issued, from 1774-81, his great _History of English Poetry_, which comes down to the end of the Elizabethan age. The research and judgment, and the stores of learning often curious and recondite, which were brought to bear upon its production render this work, though now in various respects superseded, a vast magazine of information, and it did much to restore our older poetry to the place of which it had been unjustly deprived by the classical school. His ed. of Milton's minor poems has been pronounced by competent critics to be the best ever produced. W. was a clergyman, but if the tradition is to be believed that he had only two sermons, one written by his _f._ and the other printed, and if the love of ease and of ale which he celebrates in some of his verses was other than poetical, he was more in his place as a critic than as a cleric. As a poet he hardly came up to his own standards. He was made Poet Laureate in 1785, and in the same year Camden Prof. of History, and was one of the first to detect the Chatterton forgeries, a task in which his antiquarian lore stood him in good stead.

Литературная энциклопедия. 2012