Richard Watson Dixon
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and divine, son of Dr James Dixon, a Wesleyan
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
minister.
He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, and is widely regarded as one of the most academically successful schools in the country, according to...
, and on proceeding to Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2009, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £44.9 million.-History:...
, became one of the famous Birmingham Set
Birmingham Set
The Birmingham Set, sometimes called the Pembroke Set or later The Brotherhood, was a group of students at the University of Oxford in England in the 1850s, most of whom were from Birmingham or had studied at King Edward's School, Birmingham...
there who shared with William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
and Burne-Jones
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...
in the Pre-Raphaelite movement
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...
. He wrote one story and two essays for The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, which the group published in 1856. He took only a second class in moderations in 1854, and a third in Literae Humaniores in 1856; but in 1858 he won the Arnold prize for an historical essay, and in 1863 the English Sacred Poem prize.
He was ordained in 1858, was second master of Carlisle high school, 1863-1868, and successively vicar of Hayton
Hayton, Cumbria
Hayton is a small village and civil parish in Cumbria, England, roughly east of Carlisle, and from the England/Scotland border.The place name Hayton means hay farm and refers to the former farming in the area. There is a separate settlement named Hayton within Cumbria near Aspatria. St. Mary...
, Cumberland, and Warkworth
Warkworth, Northumberland
Warkworth is a village in Northumberland, England. It is probably best known for its well-preserved medieval castle, church and hermitage. At the time of the 2001 census, the population of Warkworth was 1,493.-Geography:...
, Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
. He became minor canon and honorary librarian of Carlisle in 1868, and honorary canon in 1874, he was proctor in convocation (1890-1894), and received the honorary degree of D.D. from Oxford in 1899. He died at Warkworth.
Canon Dixon's first two volumes of verse, Christ's Company and Historical Odes, were published in 1861 and 1863 respectively; but it was not until 1883 that he attracted conspicuous notice with Mano, an historical poem in terza rima
Terza rima
Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.-Form:Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D...
, which was enthusiastically praised by Mr. Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
. This success he followed up by three privately printed volumes, Odes and Eclogues (1884), Lyrical Poems (1886), and The Story of Eudocia (1888).
Dixon's poems were during the last fifteen years of his life recognized as scholarly and refined exercises, touched with both dignity and a certain severe beauty, but he never attained any general popularity as a poet, the appeal of his poetry being directly to the scholar. A great student of history, his studies in that direction colour much of his poetry. The romantic atmosphere is remarkably preserved in Mano, a successful metrical exercise in the difficult terza rima.
His typical poems have charm and melody, without introducing any new note or variety of rhythm. He is contemplative, sober and finished in literary workmanship, a typical example of the Oxford school. Pleasant as his poetry is, however, he will probably be longest remembered by the work to which he gave the best years of his life, his History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction (1878-1902). At the time of his death he had completed six volumes, two of which were published posthumously. This fine work, covering the period from 1529 to 1570, is built upon elaborate research, and presents a trustworthy and unprejudiced survey of its subject.
Dixon was briefly considered for Poet Laureate when Alfred Tennyson died in 1892.
Dixon's Selected Poems were published in 1909 with a memoir of the author by Robert Bridges
Robert Bridges
Robert Seymour Bridges, OM, was a British poet, and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.-Personal and professional life:...
.