The major works of the English poet Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) are a group of poems that he claimed had been written by Thomas Rowley, a 15th-century priest.Thomas Chatterton, born in Bristol on No...
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Of all English poets, Thomas Chatterton seemed to his great Romantic successors most to typify a commitment to the life of imagination. His poverty and untimely suicide represented the martyrdom of th...
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In the following excerpt, Taylor draws a distinction between the documents Chatterton created to establish the medieval world in which the fictional Rowley supposedly lived and the pieces that the anc...
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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 Ch...
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In the following essay, Harmon argues that Chatterton's life served as the inspiration for Herman Melville's story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” which chronicles the short, dr...
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In the following essay, Kaplan provides a psychoanalytic portrait of Chatterton, describing him as a “typical, if extreme,” adolescent who was also haunted by the absence of a father who...
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In the following essay, the anonymous critic contends that Chatterton's popularity with later writers such as John Keats and William Wordsworth had more to do with the romance surrounding Chatt...
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In the following essay, Morrison argues that John Keats's poem “To Autumn” was strongly influenced by several poetic works produced by Chatterton. The critic observes that Keats p...
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In the following excerpt, Groom tries to define forgery in light of the Rowley manuscript controversy that occurred after Chatterton's death; in his discussion, Groom focuses on the complex deb...
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Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton
Critical Essay by Donald S. Taylor
