Chatterton, Thomas | Brian E. Mayne (essay date 1983)
Brian E. Mayne (essay date 1983)
SOURCE: “Thomas Chatterton—The Magnificent Prodigy,” in Mark Twain Journal, Vol. 21, No. 3, Spring 1983, pp. 46-7.
[In the following essay, Mayne remarks on the variety of Chatterton's works, which include satires, hymns, essays, elegies, and a comic burletta. In addition, the critic observes that even as Chatterton forged the Rowley poems, he internalized the persona of Rowley as his own.]
Thomas Chatterton was seventeen years and nine months old when, on the 25th of August, 1770, discouraged and hopeless, he put an end to his own life. His acknowledged works, written in that short and hectic span, include long satires, elegies, verse epistles, squibs, lampoons, a comic burletta, essays and sketches. These and his life as a schoolboy, apprentice, and pretended antiquarian formed the outer shell of his fascinating character. The core was the serious and deeply emotional 15th century poet Rowley,...
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