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Thomas Chatterton
Following on from the recent Charter Day article featuring Thomas Chatterton we thought it appropriate to publish a little more about the Old Colstonian Thomas Chatterton and some interesting links:
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'The Death of Thomas Chatterton' by Henry Wallis |
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Thomas Chatterton, already a prolific and influential poet by age 17, committed suicide with arsenic before his 18th birthday |
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The English poet Thomas Chatterton was a mere 17 years old when he died in 1770 as a result of arsenic poisoning. Though he has come to be regarded as something of a patron saint to the cause of teenage suicide prevention, it will never be known if his death was an intentional suicide or the result of self-medicating to cure a venerial disease.
Chatterton was the primary poet of the 18th-century Gothic literary revival, and had a great influence on the Romantic Movement. He became notorious as a result of a hoax in which he convinced many of his contemporaries, including Horace Walpole, of the authenticity of a number of forged poems supposedly written by a 15th Century monk whose existence Chatterton had invented.
Thomas Chatterton was buried in London at the Shoe Lane Workhouse Cemetery, The cemetery no longer exists, and the location of Chatterton's remains has been lost. |
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Copy of The Rowley Poems by Chatterton
Alfred de Vigny's Chatterton
Vigny's CHATTERTON (1835) is one of the most important and influential plays of the romantic stage.
Copy of full text in French
Peter Ackroyd, 1949-
Chatterton. London: Hamish Hamilton, [1987].
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his novel by one of England's best-known literary historians is a fictionalized treatment of Chatterton's life.
Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton on Amazon.co.uk
The Backwell Players recently performed a new work about Chatterton:
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