Bowles, William Lisle

Bowles, William Lisle

▪ British poet and clergyman
born , September 24, 1762, Kings Sutton, Northamptonshire, England
died April 7, 1850, Salisbury, Wiltshire
 English poet, critic, and clergyman, noted principally for his Fourteen Sonnets (1789), which expresses with simple sincerity the thoughts and feelings inspired in a mind of delicate sensibility by the contemplation of natural scenes.

      Bowles was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was a pupil of Thomas Warton (Warton, Thomas, the Younger), and became an Anglican priest in 1792. His Fourteen Sonnets was enthusiastically received by the early Romantic poets, whose theory and practice it foreshadowed, and the work particularly influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Coleridge, Samuel Taylor). By 1794 the collection had been enlarged to 27 sonnets and 13 other poems. Bowles also published verse on political and religious topics: The Missionary (1813) is an attack on Spanish rule in South America. Days Departed; or, Banwell Hill (1828) is an eloquently reflective prospect poem (a subgenre of topographical poetry that considers a particular landscape as viewed from an elevated perspective).

      As a critic, Bowles is remembered for his assertion that natural objects and basic passions are intrinsically more poetic than are artificial products or mannered feelings. This attitude may have influenced Bowles's annotated 1806 edition of the works of Alexander Pope (Pope, Alexander), in which, under a mask of judicial impartiality, Bowles attacked the great poet's moral character and poetic principles. So began the pamphlet war known as the “Pope-Bowles controversy,” in which Pope's chief defenders were Thomas Campbell (Campbell, Thomas) and Lord Byron (Byron, George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron); Byron's characterization of Bowles as “the maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers” is perhaps the only memorable remnant of this seven-year-long (1819–26) public argument.

Additional Reading
Jacob Johan van Rennes, Bowles, Byron, and the Pope-Controversy (1927, reprinted 1969); Garland Greever (ed.), A Wiltshire Parson and His Friends: The Correspondence of William Lisle Bowles (1926).

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  • BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE —    a poet, born in Northamptonshire; his sonnets, by their linking, as Professor Saintsbury has it, of nature s aspect to human feeling, were much admired by Coleridge, and their appearance is believed to have inaugurated a new era in English… …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Bowles, William Lisle — (1762 1850)    Poet and antiquary, b. at King s Sutton, Northamptonshire, of which his f. was vicar, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf., was for the most of his life Vicar of Bremhill, Wilts, and became Prebendary and Canon Residentiary of Salisbury …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • Bowles, William Lisle — (1762 1850)    Northampton born Anglican clergyman, poet and critic. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Oxford. His poem of 1783, Calpe Obsessa, or the Siege of Gibraltar, won him the chancellor s prize for Latin verse. He took… …   British and Irish poets

  • William Lisle Bowles — Nacimiento 24 de septiembre de 1762 King’s Sutton, Northamptonshire …   Wikipedia Español

  • William Lisle Bowles — (September 24, 1762 April 7, 1850) was an English poet and critic.He was born at King s Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of fourteen he entered Winchester College, the headmaster at the time being Dr Joseph Warton …   Wikipedia

  • Bowles — may refer to:Geographical * Bowles, California * Bowles Hall, an all male residence dormitory at the University of California, BerkeleyPersons* Andrew Parker Bowles (1939 ) * His ex wife, Camilla Parker Bowles (1947 ), wife of Prince Charles *… …   Wikipedia

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  • William Bowles — puede referirse a: William Bowles (1720 1784), científico irlandés. William Bowles (1780 1869), Almirante británico. William Lisle Bowles, poeta y clérigo británico del siglo XVIII. Esta página de desambiguación cataloga artí …   Wikipedia Español

  • Bowles — ist der Familienname folgender Personen: Caroline Bowles (1786–1854), englische Schriftstellerin Chester Bowles (1901–1986), US amerikanischer Politiker und Gouverneur von Connecticut Erskine Bowles (* 1945), US amerikanischer Geschäftsmann und… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Bowles — (spr. Bohles), 1) William Lisle, geb. 1761 in Kings Sutton u. Northamptonshire, studirte tu Oxford. wo er den Preis für ein lateinisches Gedicht auf die Belagerung von Gibraltar gewann, wurde Geistlicher, 1803 Präbendar der Kathedrale von… …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

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