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Chatterton, Thomas
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Chatterton, Thomas
 of the English poet Thomas Chatterton, painted in 1856. Chatterton was remembered by Wordsworth (in ‘Resolution and Independence’) as ‘the marvellous boy, the sleepless soul that perished in his pride’. He published his first poem at the age of 11 years.', copy:'(Image © The Art Archive/Tate Gallery London/Eileen Tweedy)'});)
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English poet. His medieval-style poems and brief life were to inspire English Romanticism. Having studied ancient documents, he composed poems he ascribed to a 15th-century monk, ‘Thomas Rowley’, and these were at first accepted as genuine. He committed suicide after becoming destitute.
Seeking a patron, he sent examples to the writer Horace Walpole, who, after originally being taken in, was advised that they were forgeries. In 1770 Chatterton moved to London, where during the four months until his death he contributed prose and satirical verses to various periodicals. He poisoned himself with arsenic, after having lived for weeks on the verge of starvation. His death gripped the imagination of the Romantic poets and tributes were paid to his memory by Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth.
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