The Seasons (Thomson)
Author | James Thomson |
---|---|
Original title | The Seasons |
Country | Scotland |
Language | English |
Genre | Blank verse |
Publication date | 1730 |
Media type | |
Text | The Seasons at Wikisource |
The Seasons is a series of four poems written by the Scottish author James Thomson. The first part, Winter, was published in 1726, and the completed poem cycle appeared in 1730.[1]
The poem was extremely influential, and stimulated works by Joshua Reynolds, John Christopher Smith, Joseph Haydn, Thomas Gainsborough and J. M. W. Turner.[1]
Context
Thomson was educated first at the Parish school of
Blank verse had been considered more of an interesting toy than anything useful to poetry, despite John Milton's epic-scale Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained half a century earlier.[3]
Poem
The poem was published one season at a time, Winter in 1726, Summer in 1727, Spring in 1728 and Autumn only in the complete edition of 1730.[2] Thomson borrowed Milton's Latin-influenced vocabulary and inverted word order, with phrases like "in convolution swift". He extended Milton's narrative use of blank verse to use it for description and to give a meditative feeling.[4] The critic Raymond Dexter Havens called Thomson's style pompous and contorted, remarking that Thomson seemed to have avoided "calling things by their right names and speaking simply, directly, and naturally".[4]
Influence
The lengthy blank verse poem, reflecting on the landscape of the countryside, was highly influential and much liked for at least a century after its writing.[3] Especially lavish editions were produced between 1830 and 1870 in Britain and America.[5]
A dispute over the publishing rights to The Seasons gave rise to two important legal decisions (
The Seasons was translated into German by
Artists such as Thomas Medland, Anker Smith and John Neagle (1792) created engravings to accompany the poems.[9] A bathing scene from Summer inspired paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, William Etty (Musidora: The Bather 'At the Doubtful Breeze Alarmed') and Johann Sebastian Bach the Younger.
The piece was translated into French by the naturalist Joseph-Philippe-François Deleuze (1753–1835).
Oscar Wilde included this poem, only half-sarcastically, in a list of ‘books not to read at all’.[10]
References
- ^ a b Sambrook, 2004
- ^ a b "Local History Notes: James Thomson 1700-1748" (PDF). London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
- ^ a b "James Thomson". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8214-1757-7.
- ^ Stevenson, Louise L. "The Transatlantic Travels of James Thomson's The Seasons and its Baggage of Material Culture, 1730-1870" (PDF). American Antiquarian. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
- ^ "The manuscripts, Letter from Andrew Millar to Thomas Cadell, 16 July, 1765. Andrew Millar Project. University of Edinburgh". www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
- ^ Street.), Thomas MACKLIN (of "Poets Gallery, " 39 Fleet (1793). Catalogue of the sixth exhibition.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Haydn Oratorios - The Creation & The Seasons". Early Music World. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
- ^ "James Thomson's The Seasons: Autumn". Art of the Print. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
- ^ "Meet Sir John Lubbock, Godfather of the must-read listicle". The Independent. 23 May 2019. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
Sources
- Sambrook, James. "Thomson, James (1700–1748)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Further reading
- Jung, Sandro. James Thomson’s The Seasons, Print Culture, and Visual Interpretation, 1730–1842. Lehigh University Press, 2015.
External links
- Media related to The Seasons (James Thomson) at Wikimedia Commons
- Texts on Wikisource:
- The four seasons, and other poems. By James Thomson. London: printed for J. Millan, near Scotland-Yard, White-Hall; and A. Millar, in the Strand, M.DCC.XXXV., 1735.
- The Seasons public domain audiobook at LibriVox