I am writing as secretary of the Thomas Chatterton Society to confirm
that the Society will be formally launched on 20 November, 2002 - the 250th
anniversary of Chatterton's birth. There will be a drinks reception and
readings from 7.30pm at Chatterton Hall, Colston's School, Bristol. All are
warmly invited to attend.
Dr Nick Groom
THE THOMAS CHATTERTON SOCIETY
Membership Secretary: Richard Fenlon
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The Thomas Chatterton Society has been founded in 2002 (the 250th
anniversary of Chatterton's birth), to celebrate the life and works of
this remarkable poet, and to broaden and deepen awareness of Chatterton and
his world.
The Society brings together all those who are interested in Chatterton's
writing and his extraordinary life-story, and hopes to stimulate
interest amongst those who are new to Chatterton.
It aims to increase awareness of Chatterton's important contributions to
the cultural history of Bristol and the development of Romanticism.
It supports scholarship and research into Chatterton and his writings,
and the conservation of areas associated with Chatterton.
It also aims to highlight the needs of gifted teenagers like Chatterton
in modern society.
It oganises meetings and events in Bristol and elsewhere, including a
regular event on Chatterton's Birthday, 20 November.
Members are kept informed through a regular Newsletter and other
publications
Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol on 20 November 1752 in humble
circumstances. Given a basic education at Colston's School, he was
apprenticed to a Bristol lawyer, but broke his apprenticeship to seek his
literary fortune in London.
Chatterton grew up in the shadow of St Mary Redcliffe Church. Inspired
by the church, he wrote poems in a mock-medieval style, ascribing them to
'Thomas Rowley', supposedly a fifteenth-century monk. By his mid-teens he
had completed most of his 'Rowley' cycle of poems and prose, and had
convinced a number of his fellow-citizens that these were genuine medieval
works.
Chatterton also wrote in many other styles, and his poems include some
scathing satires on the leading Bristolian and national figures of the
day. His three 'African Eclogues' were partly inspired by the sight of
African slaves on the quayside at Bristol.
After his escape to London in April 1770, Chatterton began to establish
himself as a professional writer, publishing in many journals and in all
manner of styles. But he also faced difficulties, and soon disaster
struck. Either through suicide, or as many now believe, through an
accidental overdose of drugs, Chatterton died in his attic room in Brooke
Street on 20 August 1770, aged just 17. He was buried in an unmarked
pauper's grave nearby.
By the 1780s Chatterton's 'Rowley Poems' were the focus of a raging
controversy, as the critics and scholars argued over whether the poems
were
genuinely medieval or not. One of the books written at this time was
aptly
described by a Chatterton-sympathiser as 'an owl mangling a poor dead
nightingale'.
Chatterton became an icon for the English Romantic poets. Wordsworth
called
him 'The marvellous boy', Keats dedicated Endymion to him, and his fame
spread
through Europe and beyond, as the archetype of the struggling artist
doomed to
died young.
In France Alfred de Vigny's play Chatterton (1835) led to a grim vogue
for
'suicide a la Chatterton', which alarmed the authorities into providing
funding bodies for struggling artists and writers.
Today Chatterton's memory is more important than ever before, and
artists and
authors still honour his name. New versions of the famous Victorian
painting
of 'The Death of Chatterton', and a successful opera by the German
composer
Thomas Pīnscher (1998), are among recent examples.
For some images of Chatterton and other materials visit
www.mamut.com/chatterton250th anniversary
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