Ковентри Патмор: Ағылшын ақыны және әдеби сыншысы

English poet and literary critic

Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (23 July 1823 – 26 November 1896) was an English poet and literary critic. He is best known for his book of poetry The Angel in the House, a narrative poem about the Victorian ideal of a happy marriage. As a young man, Patmore worked for the British Museum in London. After the publication of his first book of poems in 1844, he became acquainted with members of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood. After the death of his first wife, his grief over her death became a major theme in his poetry.

The eldest son of author Peter George Patmore, Coventry Patmore was born at Woodford in Essex and was privately educated. The boy was very close to his father Peter and showed an early interest in literature. Coventry Patmore's first goal was to become an artist; he earned the silver palette of the Society of Arts in 1838. In 1839, his family sent Patmore to school in France for six months, where he began to write poetry. On his return to England, Peter Patmore planned to publish some of his son's youthful poems; however, Coventry Patmore had become interested in science, and set aside writing poetry. In 1846, with help from Richard Monckton Milnes, Coventry Patmore was appointed as the printed book supernumary assistant at the British Museum. He would hold this position for the next 19 years, while devoting his spare time to writing poetry. In 1847, Patmore married Emily Augusta Andrews,

A collected edition of Patmore's poems appeared in two volumes in 1886, with a characteristic preface which might serve as the author's epitaph. "I have written little", it runs; "but it is all my best; I have never spoken when I had nothing to say, nor spared time or labour to make my words true. I have respected posterity; and should there be a posterity which cares for letters, I dare to hope that it will respect me." The sincerity which underlies this statement, combined with a certain lack of humour which peers through its naïveté, points to two of the principal characteristics of Patmore's earlier poetry; characteristics which came to be almost unconsciously merged and harmonized as his style and his intention drew together into unity. As happy love had been his earlier, the grief of loss became, in great measure, his later theme; touching and sublime thoughts upon love, death, and immortality are conveyed through strikingly poetic imagery and unusual form in the odes of The Unknown Eros, his best work. The collection is full not only of passages but entire poems in which exalted thought is expressed in poetry of the richest and most dignified melody. Spirituality informs his inspiration; the poetry is glowing and alive. The magnificent piece in praise of winter, the solemn and beautiful cadences of "Departure", and the homely but elevated pathos of "The Toys", are in their manner unsurpassed in English poetry. His somewhat reactionary political opinions, which also find expression in his odes, find less praise today although they can certainly be said to reflect, as do his essays, a serious and very active mind. Patmore is today one of the least known but best regarded Victorian poets. His son Henry John Patmore (1860–83) also became a poet.

Principles in Art. London: George Bell and Sons, 1889. Courage in Politics and other Essays. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

"William Barnes, the Dorset Poet," The Library Magazine, Vol. II, November 1886/March 1887. “Distinction,” The Eclectic Magazine, Vol. LII, 1890
"Three Essayettes," The Eclectic Magazine, Vol. LVI, July/December 1892.