George Crabbe

George Crabbe 1754-1832, English poet, b. Aldeburgh, Suffolk. After practicing medicine for a short time, he went to London in 1780, hoping to earn money by his writing. He was befriended by Edmund Burke, whose generous assistance aided in the publication of The Library (1781). He took orders in 1781 and held various livings, becoming rector at Trowbridge in 1814. The Village (1783), his most famous work, is a grim picture of rustic life, written partly in reply to Goldsmith's nostalgic Deserted Village. His bleak, realistic descriptions of life led Byron to call him "nature's sternest painter, yet the best." His other works include The Parish Register (1807), The Borough (1810), Tales (1812), and Tales of the Hall (1819).

Bibliography: See biographies by his son (ed. by E. M. Forster, 1932; repr. 1949) and R. L. Chamberlain (1965); studies by A. Pollard (1972) and B. Nelson (1976).

Crabbe, George (1754–1832). Born in Aldeburgh (Suffolk), Crabbe began training as a doctor before taking holy orders. But his love was poetry and, moving to London, he was fortunate enough to be taken up by Burke, Johnson, and the Manners family. His poem The Village (1783) is a gloomy description of poverty and toil, intended as a contrast to Goldsmith's idealized Deserted Village. It brought Crabbe considerable reputation and much clerical preferment. His other major work was The Borough (1810), which described his home town, and included the story of Peter Grimes, a sadistic fisherman, used by Benjamin Britten.

Crabbe, George (1754–1832). Born in Aldeburgh (Suffolk), Crabbe began training as a doctor before taking holy orders. But his love was poetry and, moving to London, he was fortunate enough to be taken up by Burke, Johnson, and the Manners family. His poem The Village (1783) is a gloomy description of poverty and toil, intended as a contrast to Goldsmith's idealized Deserted Village:Here joyless roam a wild amphibious race
With sullen woe displayed in every face.
It brought Crabbe considerable reputation and much clerical preferment. His other major work was The Borough (1810), which described his home town, and included the story of Peter Grimes, a sadistic fisherman, used by Benjamin Britten. Crabbe's heroic couplets looked back to Pope, but his realism linked him to Wordsworth, and it was unusual to regard the annals of the poor as of much poetic interest. Hazlitt, while admitting that Crabbe was ‘one of the most popular and admired of our living authors’, complained of the monotony of Crabbe's response—‘he has no delight beyond the walls of a workhouse’.

J. A. Cannon