Joseph Warton
{{short description|18th-century English literary critic}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2013}}
Joseph Warton (April 1722 – 23 February 1800) was an English clergyman, academic, and literary critic.
Early life and education
Warton was born in Dunsfold, Surrey, England. His family later moved to Hampshire, where his father, the Reverend Thomas Warton, became vicar of Basingstoke. A few years later in Basingstoke, Joseph's sister Jane, also a writer, and his younger brother, Thomas Warton, were born. Their father later became a professor at the University of Oxford.
Joseph was educated at Winchester College and at Oriel College, Oxford.
Career
File:A history of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight BHL20977588 (cropped).jpg in Winchester Cathedral]]
In 1748, Warton followed his father into the church, becoming curate of Winslade. In 1754, he was instituted as rector at The Church of All Saints, Tunworth.William Page (editor) [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56773 Tunworth] 'Parishes: Tunworth', A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 4 (1911), pp. 174–176. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56773 Date accessed: 8 July 2010. In his early days Joseph wrote poetry, of which the most notable piece is The Enthusiast (1744), an early precursor of Romanticism.
In 1755, he returned to his old school to teach, and from 1766 to 1793 was its headmaster, presiding over a period of bad discipline and idleness, provoking three mutinies by the boys.Partington, Wilfred (1932). Sir Walter's Post-Bag. London: John Murray, p. 120. His career as a critic was always more illustrious, and he produced editions of classical poets such as Virgil as well as English poets including John Dryden.
Like his brother, Warton was a friend of Samuel Johnson, and was part of the literary coterie centered around publisher Robert Dodsley.
A monument to Joseph Warton by the neoclassical sculptor John Flaxman is in Winchester Cathedral.
Works
- The Enthusiast, or The Lover of Nature (1744)
- Odes on Various Subjects (1746)
- Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (volume 1: 1756; volume 2: 1782)Sitter, John, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry, "Chronology", p xvii, (2001) Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|978-0-521-65885-0}}
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- Noyes, Russell (Ed.) (1956). English Romantic Poetry and Prose. New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-501007-8}}
External links
{{Wikiquote}}
- [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00049.shtml Joseph Warton] at the [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/ Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)]
- {{Gutenberg author |id=5764| name=Joseph Warton}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Joseph Warton}}
- {{Librivox author |id=8728}}
- {{UK National Archives ID}}
- {{NPG name}}
{{Headmasters of Winchester College}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Warton, Joseph}}
Category:18th-century English male writers
Category:18th-century English non-fiction writers
Category:18th-century English poets
Category:Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford
Category:English literary critics
Category:English male non-fiction writers
Category:Headmasters of Winchester College
Category:People from the Borough of Waverley