William Barnes - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

William Barnes was an English

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...

writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, 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...

, minister, and philologist. He wrote over 800 poems, some in Dorset dialect

West Country dialects

The West Country dialects and West Country accents are generic terms applied to any of several English dialects and accents used by much of the indigenous population of South West England, the area popularly known as the West Country....

and much other work including a comprehensive English grammar quoting from more than 70 different languages.

Life

He was born at Rushay in the parish of Bagber

Bagber

Bagber is a village in Dorset, 3 miles from Sturminster Newton, England. It consists of Bagber, Lower Bagber and Bagber Common. Chapel Row consists of around 10 houses in total, 6 of them being within 300 metres of the main A357. These six date back to the 19th century with the chapel now being now...

, Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, the son of a farmer. After being a solicitor's clerk and for a while keeping a school at Mere

Mere, Wiltshire

Mere is a small town in Wiltshire, England. It lies at the extreme southwestern tip of Salisbury Plain close to the borders of Somerset and Dorset....

in Wiltshire, he was ordained into the Church of England in 1847, taking a BD

Bachelor of Divinity

In Western universities, a Bachelor of Divinity is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course taken in the study of divinity or related disciplines, such as theology or, rarely, religious studies....

degree from St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College, Cambridge

St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....

, in 1851. He served curacies at Whitcombe Church

Whitcombe Church

Whitcombe Church in Whitcombe, Dorset, England was built in the 12th century. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and is now a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust...

in Whitcombe, Dorset, 1847–52, and again from 1862. Between 1860-62 he held a curacy at Rotherham

Rotherham

Rotherham is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Don, at its confluence with the River Rother, between Sheffield and Doncaster. Rotherham, at from Sheffield City Centre, is surrounded by several smaller settlements, which together form the wider Metropolitan Borough of...

in Yorkshire. He became rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

of St Peter's Church, Winterborne Came

St Peter's Church, Winterborne Came

St Peter's Church in Winterborne Came, Dorset, England was built in the 14th century. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and is now a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It was vested in the Trust on 1 March 1989.The nave...

with Winterbourne Farringdon, Dorset, from 1862-86. He is buried in the churchyard beneath a 'Celtic' cross. The plinth of the cross has the inscription: 'In Memory of William Barnes, Died Oct 7th 1886. Aged 86 Years. For 24 Years Rector of this Parish. This Memorial was raised to his Memory by his Children and Grandchildren."

He first contributed the Dorset dialect poems for which he is best known to periodicals, including Macmillan's Magazine; a collection in book form Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, was published in 1844. A second collection Hwomely Rhymes followed in 1858, and a third collection in 1863; a combined edition appeared in 1879. A "translation", Poems of Rural Life in Common English had already appeared in 1868.

His philological works include Philological Grammar (1854), Se Gefylsta, an Anglo-Saxon Delectus (1849). Tiw, or a View of Roots (1862), and a Glossary of Dorset Dialect (1863).

Among his other writings is a slim volume on "the Advantages of a More Common Adoption of The Mathematics as a Branch of Education, or Subject of Study", published in 1834.

He was a friend of Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

, Alfred Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....

and Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...

.

Barnes's poems are characterised by a singular sweetness and tenderness of feeling, deep insight into humble country life and character, and an exquisite feeling for local scenery.

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

set to music two of Barnes' poems, "In the Spring", and 'My Orcha'd in Lindèn Lea', in the "Common English" version ("Linden Lea").

Linguistic purism

Barnes had a strong interest in language; he was fluent in Greek, Latin and several modern European languages. He called for the purification of English by removal of Greek, Latin and foreign influences so that it might be better understood by those without a classical education. For example, the word "photograph" (from Greek light+writing) would become "sun-print" (from Saxon). Other terms include "wortlore" (botany), "welkinfire" (meteor) and "nipperlings" (forceps).

This 'Pure English' resembles the 'blue-eyed English' later adopted by the composer Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger

George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...

, and sometimes the updates of known Old English words given by David Cowley in 'How We'd Talk if the English had WON in 1066'

Style

As well as avoiding the use of these foreign words in his poetry, Barnes would often use a repetition of consonantal sounds similar to the Welsh poetry, cynghanedd

Cynghanedd

In Welsh language poetry, Cynghanedd is the basic concept of sound-arrangement within one line, using stress, alliteration and rhyme. The various forms of cynghanedd show up in the definitions of all formal Welsh verse forms, such as the awdl. Though of ancient origin, cynghanedd and variations of...

. Examples of this can be heard in the lines, "Do lean down low in Linden Lea" and "In our abode in Arby Wood".

Example of Dorset dialect poetry

THE LOVE CHILD

Where the bridge out at Woodley did stride,

Wi' his wide arches' cool sheäded bow,

Up above the clear brook that did slide

By the poppies, befoam'd white as snow;

As the gilcups did quiver among

The white deäsies, a-spread in a sheet.

There a quick-trippèn maïd come along,-

Aye, a girl wi' her light-steppèn veet.

An' she cried "I do praÿ, is the road

Out to Lincham on here, by the meäd?"

An' "oh! ees," I meäde answer, an' show'd

Her the way it would turn an' would leäd:

"Goo along by the beech in the nook,

Where the children do plaÿ in the cool,

To the steppèn stwones over the brook,-

Aye, the grey blocks o' rock at the pool."

"Then you don't seem a-born an' a-bred,"

I spoke up, "at a place here about;"

And she answer'd wi' cheäks up so red

As a pi'ny leäte a-come out,

"No, I liv'd wi' my uncle that died

Back in Eäpril, an' now I'm a-come

Here to Ham, to my mother, to bide,-

Aye, to her house to vind a new hwome."

I'm asheämed that I wanted know

Any more of her childhood or life

But then, why should so feäir a child grow

Where no father did bide wi' his wife;

Then wi' blushes of zunrisèn morn,

She replied "that it midden be known,

"Oh! they zent me awaÿ to be born, -*

Aye, they hid me when some would be shown."

Oh! it meäde me a'most teary-ey'd,

An' I vound I a'most could ha' groan'd-

What! so winnèn, an' still cast azide-

What! so lovely, an' not to be own'd;

Oh! a God-gift a-treated wi' scorn

Oh! a child that a squier should own;

An' to zend her awaÿ to be born!-

Aye, to hide her where others be shown!

* Words once spoken to the writer

William Barnes, Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect (June 1879), p.382

External links

William Barnes' Grave
William Barnes at University of Toronto Libraries
University of Toronto Libraries
The University of Toronto Libraries is the library system of the University of Toronto, comprising about 30 individual libraries that hold more than 10 million bound volumes and 5 million microform volumes...

Links to public-domain editions of Barnes' works