Thomas Parnell
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Thomas Parnell (11 September 1679 – 24 October 1718) was a poet and clergyman, born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin and was a friend of both Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift.
Parnell participated in the Scriblerus Club, contributing to The Spectator, and he also aided Pope in his translation of The Iliad. He was one of the so-called "Graveyard poets": his 'A Night-Piece on Death,' widely considered the first "Graveyard School" poem, was published posthumously in Poems on Several Occasions, collected and edited by Alexander Pope and is thought by some scholars to have been published in December of 1721 (although dated in 1722 on its title page, the year accepted by The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature; see 1721 in poetry, 1722 in poetry). It is said of his poetry 'it was in keeping with his character, easy and pleasing, ennunciating the common places with felicity and grace.
Oliver Goldsmith wrote a biography of Parnell which often accompanied later editions of Parnell's works.
Works
- Essay on the Different Stiles of Poetry (1713)
- Battle of the Frogs and Mice (1717 translation in heroic couplets of a comic epic then attributed to Homer)
References
- R. Woodman, Thomas Parnell (1985). ISBN 978-0-8057-6883-1
