Thomas Lovell Beddoes

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Thomas Lovell Beddoes (June 30, 1803 - January 26, 1849) was an English poet and dramatist. He was son of Dr. Thomas Beddoes, a friend of Coleridge, and Anna, sister of Maria Edgeworth. He was educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Oxford. He published in 1821 The Improvisatore, which he afterwards endeavoured to suppress. His next venture was The Brides' Tragedy (1822), an blank verse drama that was published and well reviewed, and won for him the friendship of "Barry Cornwall."

In 1824 he went to Göttingen to study medicine. He was expelled, and then went to Würzburg to complete his training. At this period he became involved with radical politics which got him into trouble. He was deported from Bavaria in 1833, and had to leave Zürich, where he had settled, in 1840.

He continued to write, but published nothing.

He led an itinerant life after leaving Switzerland, returning to England only in 1846, before going back to Germany. He became increasingly disturbed, and died at Bale in mysterious circumstances (1849) - it is believed that he committed suicide. For some time before his death he had been engaged upon a drama, Death's Jest Book, which was published in 1850 with a memoir by his friend, T.F. Kelsall. His Collected Poems were published in 1851.

Beddoes had not the true dramatic instinct, but his poetry is full of thought and richness of diction. Some of his short pieces, e.g.: "If there were dreams to sell," and "If thou wilt ease thine heart," are masterpieces of intense feeling exquisitely expressed.

References

• This article incorporates text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.de:Thomas Lovell Beddoes