The James Thomson Page


Portrait of James Thomson

( 1700 - 1748 )

" Thomson was but an indifferent hater; and the most indispensable part of the love of liberty has unfortunately hitherto been the hatred of tyranny. Spleen is the soul of patriotism and of public good: but you would not expect a man who has been seen eating peaches off a tree with both hands in his waistcoat pockets, to be 'overrun with the spleen,' or to heat himself needlessly about an abstract proposition. "

Major Works
Winter ( 1726 ). On Line
Summer ( 1727 ).
Spring ( 1728 ).
Britannia ( 1729 ).
Memory of Congreve ( 1729 ).
The Seasons ( 1730; 1744; 1746 ).
The Tragedy of Sophonisba ( 1730 ).
Liberty: A Poem ( 1735 - 36 ).
Memory of Talbot ( 1737 ).
Agamemnon ( 1738 ).
Edward and Eleanore ( 1739 ).
Alfred ( 1740 ).
Tancred and Sigismunda ( 1745 ).
The Castle of Indolence: An Allegorical Poem Written in Imitation of Spenser ( 1748 ).
Coriolanus ( 1749 ).
Works. Edited by George, Baron Lyttleton, 1750.
Letters and Documents. Edited by Alan D. McKillop. Kansas, 1958.

About Thomson
Douglas Grant, James Thomson: Poet of the Seasons. Cresset, 1951.
Thomson Criticism from Internet Public Library.
James Thomson from Bartleby.

Back to Restoration and Eighteenth Century Literature