author
Thomas Warton
1728–1790
Best known as an early historian of English poetry, this eighteenth-century scholar also served as Poet Laureate of Britain. His writing helped turn a love of older literature—especially medieval and Elizabethan verse—into a serious field of study.
1 Audiobook
A history of English poetry : an unpublished continuation
by Thomas Warton
About the author
Born in Basingstoke on January 9, 1728, Thomas Warton grew up in a literary family and went on to study at Trinity College, Oxford. He became a fellow there and spent much of his life at Oxford as a teacher, critic, and man of letters.
Warton wrote poems of his own, including The Pleasures of Melancholy, but he is remembered most for his literary scholarship. His major work, The History of English Poetry, was one of the first large-scale attempts to trace the development of English verse across centuries, and it helped spark lasting interest in older writers and traditions.
In 1785 he was appointed Poet Laureate. Readers often value him less for polished poetic finish than for his curiosity, learning, and enthusiasm for the English past, which made him an important bridge between eighteenth-century criticism and the later Romantic interest in medieval and early English literature.