Francis Thompson

Francis Thompson 1859-1907, English poet. His poetry, usually on religious subjects, is noted for its brilliant imagery and sonorous language. He was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood at Ushaw College but in 1877 entered Owens College, Manchester, to study medicine. Relinquishing his medical studies in 1885, he went to London, where he lived a destitute life, suffering from ill health, poverty, and opium addiction. In 1888 he sent a manuscript to Wilfrid Meynell who, with his wife Alice Meynell , edited the Catholic periodical Merry England. They recognized Thompson's poetic ability and took him under their care. Poems (1893), which attracted much attention, contained "The Hound of Heaven," Thompson's chief and best-known work, describing the poet's futile flight from God. Two more volumes appeared, Sister Songs (1895) and New Poems (1897), both supplemented by the publication of a few more poems after his death. Thompson spent the years from 1893 to 1897 in a monastery in Wales. Although Thompson is considered an important English poet, his verse has frequently been criticized for its verbosity and lack of originality in thought. Thompson also wrote a number of essays, including a study of Shelley (1909).

Bibliography: See his Literary Criticisms (ed. by T. L. Connolly, 1948); biographies by E. Meynell (1913, repr. 1971), and P. van K. Thomson (1961, repr. 1972); studies by J. C. Reid (1959) and R. L. Mégroz (1927, repr. 1971).

Thompson, Francis (1859–1907), RC poet. He was intended for the priesthood but later unsuccessfully studied medicine. In 1885 he went to London and spent three years in almost complete destitution. His first volume of Poems (1893) includes ‘The Hound of Heaven’, with its arresting description of the pursuit of the soul by God. His poetry has affinities with that of the Metaphysical Poets of the 17th cent.

Thompson, Francis (1859–1907), after failed attempts to train for the Roman Catholic priesthood, spent three years, from 1885, of homeless and opium-addicted destitution in London, till he was rescued by Wilfred and Alice Meynell, who secured him literary recognition. He never freed himself for long from opium which, together with tuberculosis, caused his early death. His best-known poems are ‘The Hound of Heaven’ and ‘The Kingdom of God’; he published three volumes of verse, in 1893, 1895, and 1897, and much literary criticism, in Meynell's Merry England, the Academy, and the Athenaeum. His finest work conveys intense religious experience in imagery of great power; he was influenced especially by Shelley, De Quincey, and Crashaw.