Edward Young

Edward Young 1683-1765, English poet and dramatist. After a disappointing political life he took holy orders about 1724, serving for a time as the royal chaplain before becoming rector of Welwyn in 1730. He achieved great renown in his own time, both in England and on the Continent, for his long poem The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742-45), a Christian apologetic inspired by the deaths of his wife, stepdaughter, and the latter's husband. Besides writing a series of satires, The Universal Passion (1725-28), he was the author of three bombastic tragedies, Busiris (1719), The Revenge (1721), and The Brothers (1753). His last important work was his prose Conjectures on Original Composition (1759).

Bibliography: See his correspondence, ed. by H. Pettit (1972); biography by I. S. Bliss (1969); H. Forster, Edward Young: Poet of the Night Thoughts (1986).

Young, Edward (1683–1765). His early works include the tragedies Busiris, produced in 1719, and The Revenge, produced in 1721. In 1725–8 he published a series of satires under the title The Universal Passion (the love of fame). He took orders and became rector of Welwyn in 1730, where he spent the remainder of his life. Young's most celebrated poem, The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality (1742–5, see Night Thoughts) is a noted example of the graveyard genre. The Brothers, a tragedy written decades earlier, was performed and published in 1753, and Resignation, his last considerable poem, with a preface to Mrs Boscawen, appeared in 1762.