author
William Sidney Walker
1795–1846
A brilliant but troubled 19th-century scholar, he is best remembered for his sharp eye for Shakespeare and for a life shaped as much by hardship as by learning.
1 Audiobook
Gustavus Vasa and other poems
by William Sidney Walker
About the author
Born in Pembroke, Wales, on December 4, 1795, William Sidney Walker was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He stood out early as a gifted classicist, winning the Craven Scholarship in 1817 and the Porson Prize for Greek verse in 1818, and he later became a fellow of Trinity.
Walker wrote poetry and translations, but his lasting reputation rests on literary scholarship, especially his work on Shakespeare. His studies of Shakespearean language and metre were admired for their precision, and he became known as an unusually learned and original critic.
His life was also marked by difficulty. Religious doubts forced him to give up his Cambridge fellowship, and later years brought poverty and mental illness. He died in London on October 15, 1846, leaving behind a small but respected body of work as a poet, translator, and Shakespearean critic.