An enormous number of poets died strange, heroic or untimely deaths. It’s hard to be rhapsodic about these; bluffers are caring people, who don’t go around revelling in the fact that Marlowe, Fergusson, Chatterton, Shelley, Keats, Emily Brontë and many others all died at or before they were 30. Say instead what a pity it was that Tennyson, Wordsworth, Hardy, Belloc, de la Mare, Masefield and Graves lived so long. ‘Think what they would have accomplished,’ you can say, ‘had their energies been concentrated, as Shelley’s was, into two or three decades.’ People won’t understand and assume that you must have a point.
However, for those of a morbid disposition, here is a list of poets for whom Death cameth either soon rather than late, or in a particularly individual manner:
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (1880-1918)
French Cubist poet (though believed to have been born in Rome). Real name Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitsky. Began writing poetry while in La Santé Prison in Paris, where he’d been sent following his involvement with two statuettes stolen from the Louvre museum and sold to Picasso, and the subsequent theft of the Mona Lisa (believed to have been carried out by his shady secretary). Died of wounds received in the First World War.
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824)
The Great Romantic. Died of fever after he’d joined the Greek insurgents fighting for liberation from Ottoman rule.
THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752-1770)
The Boy Wonder. Or ‘the marvellous Boy / The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride’, as Wordsworth put it, clearly a fan of this child genius who spent most of his short life forging poems. Reduced to despair by his poverty (there’s not much of a market for forged poems), he poisoned himself with arsenic – an image later captured by Pre-Raphaelite Henry Wallis in The Death of Chatterton.
JOHN CORNFORD (1915-1936)
Christened Rupert John after Rupert Brooke, who had just died and had been a friend of his parents. Academically brilliant and politically perceptive. Went to Spain and was killed by machine-gun fire the day after his 21st birthday. Read ‘Full Moon At Tierz’.
FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE (1554-1628)
Murdered by his servant, Haywood, who thought himself omitted from his master’s will. (This always seems such a silly crime – surely the time to murder someone is when you’re included in their will.)
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA (1898-1936)
Spanish poet and playwright, murdered by the fascists early in the Spanish Civil War.
ROBIN HYDE (1906-1939)
Real name Iris Guiver Wilkinson. New Zealand poet who arrived ill in England after travelling through war-torn China, and soon committed suicide.
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
Possibly the most famous of the early departers. Died of consumption in Rome. Epitaph (written himself): ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water’.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)
MI5’s most famous poet, killed on active service in a pub in Deptford, ostensibly while arguing about the bill. His death shows:
a) Nobody should argue about the bill in Deptford.
b) You shouldn’t mix poetry with espionage.
A lot of people think that Shakespeare’s plays were written by Marlowe. But then again, apparently around 9 million Americans think they’ve been abducted by aliens.
CHARLOTTE MEW (1869-1928)
Following her sister’s death, and frightened of loneliness and insanity, committed suicide.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH (1552-1618)
Unfairly tried on charge of plotting against James I, condemned to death, sent to the Tower from 1603 to 1616. Wrote some poems. Released to undertake an expedition to the Orinoco in search of gold. Failed to find any. Re-arrested on the demand of the Spanish ambassador, sent back to Tower, wrote more poems. Beheaded.
ROGER ROUGHTON (1916-1941)
Surrealist poet who killed himself in Dublin, but it may have been an accident – you can never tell with Surrealists.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822)
Like Keats, made the mistake of moving to Italy and was drowned in the Bay of La Spezia while returning from visiting his friends Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586)
Joined in an attack on a Spanish convoy at Zutphen and received a fatal wound in the thigh.
ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843)
Poet Laureate who died of softening of the brain. A desire to guard against this is probably the reason that so many aspiring poets affect floppy hats, berets, boaters, etc. No one ever has a good word to say about his poetry these days, so a plea for critical leniency on account of his brain turning to mush is a sound bluff which will at once confer upon you both erudition and the possession of a compassionate nature.
HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY (1517-1547)
Executed for advising his sister to become Henry VIII’s mistress, an arrangement that clearly didn’t suit any of the three parties involved; the king himself a short while later. Escaped unpunished, however, for a much more heinous crime – introducing the sonnet to England (along with Wyatt – see ‘From the Beginnings to the Bard’, page 33).
ALGERNON SWINBURNE (1837-1909)
Born all but dead, wasn’t expected to live an hour and was described by his contemporaries at Eton as a ‘queer little elf’ and ‘a kind of fairy’. Peculiarly and congenitally unfit for dissipation, he gave it a try. Notorious for his interest in de Sade, his health prevented him from playing an active part. Died in Putney of pneumonia when the rest of the household went down with influenza.
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER (1647-1680)
Court wit and writer of shockingly lewd poems, ‘blazed out his youth and health in lavish voluptuousness’, and, quite simply, died of an excess.