William Barnes

William Barnes (* February 22, 1801 in Sturminster Newton, Dorset, † October 7, 1886 in Winterborne Came, Dorset ) was an English dialect poet, writer and philologist.

Life

William Barnes was born into a poor peasant family. From 1823 he worked as a teacher at various country schools in Dorset. It was not until 1837 he took up the study of theology at St John's College, Cambridge and obtained there the degree of Bachelor. In 1847 he became assistant pastor of Whitcombe (Dorset), in 1862 vicar of Winterbourne Came in the diocese of Salisbury. After 1861, he moved into a pension from the royal civil list.

Generic plant density

His first book of poems Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect appeared in 1844 in the coming decades published a large number of poems, many of them in the dialect of his home county of Dorset, in which he vividly described the life of the rural population.; his dialect seals also include a paraphrase of the Song of Solomon ( Song of Solomon in the Dorset dialect, 1859). His poems have been appreciated by many literary figures of his time as Tennyson and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Great influence was mainly due to Barnes Thomas Hardy, who also documented the rural life of the region in his numerous novels and poems - when he also called Wessex rather than Dorset.

Philological work

In addition to poetry and numerous articles in newspapers and magazines, he also published a large number of philological works, including a comparative grammar of the English language with examples from more than 60 different languages. (A philological grammar, grounded upon English and Formed from a comparison of more than 60 languages ​​, etc., 1854). He sat down vehemently committed to " clean. " The English language by borrowing from foreign languages ​​So he suggested to replace the Greek -born photographer by sun -print, others proposed by him " Saxon " neologisms are wortlore (rather than botany " Botany " ) and welkinfire (instead of meteor ).