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HOOD, THOMAS (1799-1845)
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See also:HOOD, See also: Coleridge wrote to Charles Lamb averring that the See also:book must be his work. The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies (1827) and a dramatic See also:romance, See also:Lamia, published later, belong to this time. The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies was a See also:volume of serious See also:verse, in which Hood showed himself a by no means despicable follower of Keats. But he was known as a humorist, and the public, which had learned to expect jokes from him, rejected this little book almost entirely. There was much true See also:poetry in the verse, and much See also:sound sense and keen observation in the See also:prose of these See also:works; but the poetical feeling and lyrical facility of the one, and the more solid qualities of the other, seemed best employed when they were subservient to his rapid wit, and to the ingenious coruscations of his See also:fancy. This impression was confirmed by the See also:series of the Comic See also:Annual, dating from 1830, a See also:kind of publication at that time popular, which Hood undertook and continued, almost unassisted, for several years. Under that somewhat frivolous See also:title he treated all the leading events of the See also:day in a See also:fine spirit of See also:caricature, entirely See also:free from grossness and vulgarity, without a trait of See also:personal malice, and with an under-current of true sympathy and honest purpose that will preserve these papers, like the sketches of See also:Hogarth, long after the events and See also:manners they illustrate have passed from the minds of men. But just as the agreeable See also:jester See also:rose into the See also:earnest satirist, one of the most striking peculiarities of his See also:style became a more See also:manifest defect. The See also:attention of the reader was distracted, and his See also:good See also:taste annoyed, by the incessant use of puns, of which Hood had written in his own vindication: " However critics may take offence, A See also:double meaning has double sense." Now it is true that the critic must be unconscious of some of the subtlest charms and nicest delicacies of See also:language who would exclude from humorous See also:writing all those impressions and surprises which depend on the use of the diverse sense of words. The See also:history, indeed, of many a word lies hid in its equivocal uses; and it in no way derogates from the dignity of the highest poetry to gain strength and variety from the ingenious application of the same sounds to different senses, any, more than from the contrivances of See also:rhythm or the See also:accompaniment of imitative sounds. But when this See also:habit becomes the characteristic of any wit, it is impossible to prevent it from degenerating into occasional buffoonery, and from supplying a cheap and ready resource, whenever the true vein of See also:humour becomes thin or rare. Artists have been known to use the See also:left See also:hand in the See also:hope of checking the fatal facility which practice had conferred on the right; and if Hood had been able to See also:place under some See also:restraint the curious and complex machinery of words and syllables which his fancy was incessantly producing, his style would have been a See also:great gainer, and much real earnestness of See also:object, which now lies confused by the brilliant See also:kaleidoscope of language, would have remained definite and clear. He was probably not unconscious of this danger; for, as he gained experience as a writer, his diction became more See also:simple, and his ludicrous illustrations less frequent. In another annual called the See also:Gem appeared the poem on the See also:story of " See also:Eugene See also:Aram," which first manifested the full extent of that poetical vigour which seemed to advance just in proportion as his See also:physical health declined. He started a magazine in his own name, for which he secured the assistance of many literary men of reputation and authority, but which was mainly sustained by his own intellectual activity. From a sick-See also:bed, from which he never rose, he conducted this work with surprising See also:energy, and there composed those poems, too few in number, but immortal in the See also:English language, such as the " See also:Song of the See also:Shirt " (which appeared anonymously in the See also:Christmas number of See also:Punch, 1843), the " See also:Bridge of Sighs " and the " Song of .the Labourer," which seized the deep human interests of the time, and transported them from the ground of social See also:philosophy into the loftier domain of the See also:imagination. They are no clamorous expressions of anger at the discrepancies and contrasts of humanity, but See also:plain, See also:solemn pictures of conditions of life, which neither the politician nor the moralist can deny to exist, and which they are imperatively called upon to remedy. Woman, in her wasted life, in her hurried death, here stands appealing to the society that degrades her, with a See also:combination of eloquence and poetry, of forms of art at once instantaneous and permanent, and with great metrical energy and variety. Hood was associated with the See also:Athenaeum, started in 1828 by J. See also:Silk See also:Buckingham, and he was a See also:regular contributor for the See also:rest of his life. Prolonged illness brought on straitened circumstances; and application was made to See also:Sir See also:Robert See also:Peel to place Hood's name on the See also:pension See also:list with which the British See also:state so moderately rewards the See also:national services of literary men. This was done without delay, and the pension was continued to his wife and family after his death, which occurred on the 3rd of May 1845. Nine years after a See also:monument, raised by public subscription, in the See also:cemetery of Kensal See also:Green, was inaugurated by Monckton 1blilnes (See also:Lord See also:Houghton) with a concourse of spectators that showed how well the memory of the poet stood the test of time. Artisans came from a great distance to view and See also:honour the See also:image of the popular writer whose best efforts had been dedicated to the cause and the sufferings of the workers of the world; and literary men of all opinions gathered See also:round the See also:grave of one of their brethren whose writings were at once the delight of every boy and the instruction of every See also:man who read them. Happy the humorist whose works and life are an See also:illustration of the great moral truth that the sense of humour is the just See also:balance of all the faculties of man, the best See also:security against the See also:pride of knowledge and the conceits of the imagination, the strongest inducement to submit with a See also:wise and pious See also:patience to the vicissitudes of human existence. This was the See also:lesson that Thomas Hood left behind him. (H.)
The See also:chief See also:sources of his See also:biography are: Memorials of Thomas Hood, collected, arranged and edited by his daughter (186o); his " Literary Reminiscences " in Hood's Own ; See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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