born March 15, 1867, Broadstairs, Kent, Eng. died Oct. 4, 1902, London
English poet and critic who was notable
for his fastidious and wistful lyrical poems
but is mainly remembered as a typical
representative of the “tragic generation” of
the 1890s, which suffered from fin-de-siècle
decadence and melancholy.
Johnson studied at Winchester College and
at New College, Oxford, and then went to
London to pursue a literary career and to
work as a writer and critic for a number of
periodicals. He early became an alcoholic
and a recluse and suffered from spiritual
malaise. He converted from Anglicanism to
Roman Catholicism in 1891. Johnson wrote the
first solid study of novelist and poet
Thomas Hardy, and his Poetical Works were
edited in 1915 by Ezra Pound. He died at age
35 after falling on a public street and
fracturing his skull. His friend William
Butler Yeats left a touching portrait of him
in Autobiographies.
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