Ernest Christopher Dowson

Ernest Christopher Dowson , 1867-1900, English poet. He attended Queens College, Oxford, but left in 1888 without taking a degree. Dowson's life was tragic. In 1894 his father died, and his mother committed suicide six months later. Dowson himself was consumptive, alcoholic, and debt-ridden. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 32. One of the fin-de-siècle decadents , Dowson wrote fragile, sensuous poetry voicing regret for the passing of youth and beauty, the denial of love, and the rejection of pleasure. His best-known poem is "Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae," with its refrain, "I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion." A Roman Catholic, Dowson wrote some very fine religious poetry. He also made some notable translations from the French and wrote a novel and a play.

Bibliography: See his works (ed. by D. Flower, 1934) and his letters (ed. by D. Flower and H. Maas, 1968); biographies by T. B. Swann (1964), J. M. Longaker (3d ed. 1967), and J. Adams (2000).

Dowson, Ernest Christopher (1867–1900) established himself in the London society of Beardsley, Le Gallienne, Wilde, and their friends. He contributed poems to the Yellow Book, the Savoy, and the anthologies published by the Rhymers' Club. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1891. Dowson's stories Dilemmas appeared in 1895. The first of his two books of poetry, Verses (containing his celebrated ‘Non Sum Qualis Eram’, better known as ‘Cynara’), appeared in 1896, and Decorations in 1899. His one-act verse play The Pierrot of the Minute was published in 1897. The poems, which display much variety in stanza and prosody, group themselves chiefly into love poetry, including ‘Cynara’; devotional poems; poems of the natural world; and above all poems of ennui and world-weariness, such as the well-known ‘Vitae Summa Brevis’ (‘They are not long, the days of wine and roses’), ‘To One in Bedlam’, and several translations and adaptations of Verlaine. See also art for art's sake.