Samuel Butler (poet)
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| Samuel Butler | |
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 Portrait of Samuel Butler by Pieter Borsseler |
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| Born | February 1613 Strensham, Worcestershire |
| Died | 25 September 1680 (aged 67) |
| Nationality | English |
| Notable work(s) | Hudibras (1663–1678) |
Samuel Butler (Bap. 14 February 1613 – 25 September 1680) was a poet and satirist. He is remembered now chiefly for a long satirical poem entitled Hudibras.
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[edit] Biography
Samuel Butler was born in Strensham, Worcestershire, and was the son of a farmer. His date of birth is unknown, but there is documentary evidence for the date of his baptism.[1] He was educated at the King's School, Worcester, under Henry Bright whose teaching is recorded favourably by Thomas Fuller, a contemporary writer, in his Worthies of England. In early youth he was a servant to the Countess of Kent. Through Lady Kent he met her steward, the jurist John Selden who influenced his later writings. He also tried his hand at painting but was reportedly not very good at it; one of his editors reporting that "his pictures served to stop windows and save the tax" (on window glass).
After the Restoration he became Secretary to the Richard Carbery, Lord President of Wales. In late 1662 the first part of Hudibras was published, and the other two in 1664 and 1678 respectively. One early purchaser of the first two parts was Samuel Pepys. While the diarist acknowledged that the book was the "greatest fashion" he could not see why it was found to be so witty.[2]
The popularity of Hudibras notwithstanding, Butler was not offered a place at Court. However, Butler is thought to have been in the employment of the Duke of Buckingham in the Summer of 1670, and accompanied him on a diplomatic mission to France. [3] Butler also received financial support in the form of a grant from King Charles II. [4]
Butler was buried at St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Aubrey in Brief Lives describes his grave as "being in the north part next to the church at the east end.. 2 yards distant from the pillaster of the dore".[5] Also, a monument to him was placed in Westminster Abbey in 1732 by a printer with the surname Barber, and the Lord Mayor of London.[6] There is a memorial plaque to him in the small village church of Strensham, Worcestershire, near the town of Upton upon Severn, his birthplace.
[edit] Hudibras
Hudibras is directed against the religious sectarianism. The poem was very popular in its time, and several of its phrases have passed into the dictionary. It was sufficiently popular to spawn imitators. Hudibras takes some of its characterization from Don Quixote but unlike that work, it has many more references to personalities and events of the day. Butler was also influenced by satirists such as John Skelton and Paul Scarron's Virgile travesti; a satire on classical literature particularly Virgil.
- Butler, Samuel, Hudibras: The Second Part, London 1663. Facsimile ed., 1994, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 978-0-8201-1469-9.
Hudibras was republished in the late 1700s and 1800s in a version edited with notes by Treadway Russell Nash.
[edit] Other writings
Most of his other writings never saw print until they were collected and published by Robert Thyer in 1759. Butler wrote many short biographies, epigrams and verses the earliest surviving from 1644. Of his verses, the best known is "The Elephant on the Moon", about a mouse in a telescope, a satire on Sir Paul Neale of the Royal Society. Butler's taste for the mock heroic is shown by another early poem Cynarctomachy, or Battle between Bear and Dogs, which is both a homage to and a parody of a Greek poem ascribed to Homer, Batrachomyomachia. His supposed lack of money later in life is strange as he had numerous unpublished works which could have offered him income including a set of Theophrastan character sketches which were not printed until 1759. Many other works are dubiously attributed to him.
[edit] Quotation
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Samuel Butler (1612–1680) |
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Butler, Samuel (poet). |
- A News-monger is a Retailer of Rumour, that takes up upon Trust, and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a perishable Commodity, that will not keep: for if it be not fresh it lies upon his Hands, and will yield nothing. True or false is all one to him; for Novelty being the Grace of bothe, a Truth grows stale as soon as a Lye. — Samuel Butler (17th c.), Characters
[edit] References
- ^ R.M. Wilding, "The Date of Samuel Butler's Baptism", Review of English Studies, vol.17, (May 1966), p.175.
- ^ Samuel Pepys. Diary, 10 December 1663. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
- ^ Norma E. Bentley. "'Hudibras' Butler Abroad", Modern Language Notes, Vol. 60, No. 4, April 1945, pp.254–9
- ^ Norma E. Bentley. "A Grant to 'Hudibras' Butler", Modern Language Notes,Vol. 59, No.4, April 1944, pp.281.
- ^ John Aubrey. Brief Lives, chiefly of Contemporaries, ed. Andrew Clark, (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1898) vol. 1, p.136.
- ^ Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey. Fourth ed. (London, John Murray, 1868), p. 280.
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain from the entry "Butler, Samuel (satirist)" in: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J. M. Dent & Sons; New York, E. P. Dutton.
[edit] External links
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: Samuel Butler (1612–1680) |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Samuel Butler (poet) |
