James Henry (poet)

James Henry (13 December 1798 - 14 July 1876) was an Irish classical scholar and poet.

Life

Born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, until 1845, he practised as a physician in Dublin city. In spite of his unconventionality and unorthodox views on religion and his own profession, he was very successful. He was married, with one child.

Literary commentary

His accession to a large fortune enabled him to devote himself entirely to the absorbing occupation of his life: the study of Virgil. Accompanied by his wife and daughter, he visited all those parts of Europe where he was likely to find rare editions or manuscripts of the poet. He died near Dublin.

As a commentator on Virgil, Henry will always deserve to be remembered, notwithstanding the occasional eccentricity of his notes and remarks. The first fruits of his researches were published at Dresden in 1853 under the quaint title "Notes of a Twelve Years Voyage of Discovery in the first six Books of the Eneis". These were embodied, with alterations and additions, in the "Aeneidea, or Critical, Exegetical and Aesthetical Remarks on the Aeneis" (1873-1892), of which only the notes on the first book were published during the author's lifetime. As a textual critic Henry was exceedingly conservative. His notes, written in a racy and interesting style, are especially valuable for their wealth of illustration and references to the less-known classical authors.

Poetry

Henry was also the author of five collections of verse plus two long narrative poems describing his travels, and various pamphlets of a satirical nature.

At its best his poetry has something of the flavour of Robert Browning and Arthur Hugh Clough while at its worst it resembles the doggerel of William McGonagall. His five volumes of verse were all published at his own expense and received no critical attention either during or after his lifetime.

Rediscovery

Henry was rediscovered by Christopher Ricks who included eight of his poems in the "New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse" (1987). Then there was silence for ten years until the "Penguin Book of Victorian Verse" included four of his poems. Valentine Cunningham included five of Henry's poems in "The Victorians: an Anthology of Poetry and Poetics", published by Blackwell in 2000. In 2002 Ricks edited with an introduction the "Selected Poems of James Henry", published by The Lilliput Press (reviewed in "The New York Review of Books", "The Times Literary Supplement" and "The Sunday Telegraph").

References

* James Henry has an entry in the recently published "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"
* Obituary notice by J. P. Mahaffy in the "Academy" of 12 August 1876, with a list of his works, nearly all of which were privately printed
*1911