THOMPSON, FRANCIS. - English Catholic poet, b. at Preston on 16 Dec. 1859, d. at London on 13 Nov. 1907.
After his attempts to become a priest came to nothing, T. left his family, through a strange misunderstanding, and found himself a beggar on the pavements of London, whence he was redeemed by the charity and friendship of Wilfrid and Alice Meynell. His poetry has as its subject the enchantment of creation, not so much contemplated in its apparent simplicity as exalted with the suggestions and evocations of ancient mythologies and new scientific discoveries, in a language largely indebted, besides to the poets of the seventeenth century and of Romanticism, to the liturgy and above all to Sacred Scripture. T.'s best-known poem is The Hound of Heaven, where God is represented, in the manner of the medieval mystics, as a Divine hound, tireless in the hunt for the soul, which is anxious to escape him by clinging to creation, but which cannot elude the pursuit of that divine love.
Of his prose works, which treat the most diverse subjects, but always with religious allusions, the most celebrated is the essay on Shelley, a poet in more than one respect akin to T.
Bibliography4 worksedd.: The works of F. T., 3 vols., London 1913; Poems of F. T., edited by T. L. Connolly, New York and London 1941. Studies: E. Meynell, The
BIBL.: edd.: The works of F. T., 3 vols., London 1913; Poems of F. T., edited by T. L. Connolly, New York and London 1941. Studies: E. Meynell, The life of F. T., London 1926; F. Olivero, F. T., Brescia 1935; V. Meynell, F. T. and Wilfrid Meynell, London 1952.
Castelli, Alberto. “Thompson, francis.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XII, col. 61. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1954. https://azioneromana.com/article/thompson-francis.
MLA
Castelli, Alberto. “Thompson, francis.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1954, col. 61. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/thompson-francis.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec12_thompson_francis,
author = {Castelli, Alberto},
title = {Thompson, francis},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {XII},
pages = {61},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1954},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/thompson-francis}
}
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