Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (23 July 1823 – 26 November 1896) was an English poet and literary critic. He is best known for his book of poetry The Angel in the House (1854), a narrative poem about the Victorian ideal of a happy marriage.
After the publication of his first book of poems in 1844, he became acquainted with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He worked for the British Museum for 19 years, starting in 1846. His grief over the death of his first wife, Emily Augusta Patmore in 1862, became a major theme in his poetry.
Early life
The eldest son of author Peter George Patmore, Patmore was born at Woodford in Essex and was privately educated. The boy was very close to his father Peter and showed an early interest in literature. Patmore's first goal was to become an artist; he earned the silver palette of the Society of Arts in 1838. In 1839, his family sent Patmore to school in France for six months, where he began to write poetry. On his return to England, Peter Patmore planned to publish some of his son's youthful poems; however, Patmore had become interested in science, and set aside writing poetry.
thumb|left|170px|Drawing of Coventry Patmore, by [[John Brett (artist)|John Brett, 1855.]]
In 1846, with help from Richard Monckton Milnes, Patmore was appointed as the printed book supernumary assistant at the British Museum. He would hold this position for the next 19 years, while devoting his spare time to writing poetry.
In 1847, Patmore married Emily Augusta Andrews,
Major publications
thumb|Patmore's first wife, Emily, the model for [[Mrs Coventry Patmore (Millais painting)|Mrs Coventry Patmore, an 1851 portrait by John Everett Millais.]]
thumb|Patmore's home at [[Fortis Green|85 Fortis Green, 1858–60.]]
In 1853, Patmore republished Tamerton Church Tower, the more successful of his pieces from Poems of 1844. He also added several new poems that showed more sophistication in conception and treatment. In 1854, Patmore published the first part of his best-known poem, The Angel in the House. The Angel in the House is a long narrative and lyric poem, with four parts published between 1854 and 1862:
- The Betrothal (1854)
- The Espousals (1856), which eulogise his first wife;
- Faithful for Ever (1860)
- The Victories of Love (1862)
Patmore published the four works together in 1863. The works have come to symbolise the Victorian feminine ideal – which was not necessarily the ideal amongst feminists of the period.
By 1861 Patmore and his family were living in Elm Cottage, North End, Hampstead. On 5 July 1862 Emily Patmore died after a long illness, and shortly afterwards Patmore joined the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1864 Patmore married Marianne Byles, daughter of James Byles of Bowden Hall, Gloucester. Patmore purchased Buxted Hall in East Sussex in 1865, which he described in How I managed my Estate (1886). In 1877 Patmore published The Unknown Eros, which some commentators believe contains his finest poetic work, and in 1878 Amelia, his own favourite among his poems, together with an essay on English Metrical Law. This departure into criticism continued in 1879 with a volume of papers entitled Principle in Art, and again in 1893 with Religio Poetae.
Patmore's second wife Marianne died in 1880, and in 1881 he married Harriet Robson He was buried in Lymington churchyard.
Evaluation
A collected edition of Patmore's poems appeared in two volumes in 1886, with a characteristic preface which might serve as the author's epitaph. "I have written little", it runs; "but it is all my best; I have never spoken when I had nothing to say, nor spared time or labour to make my words true. I have respected posterity; and should there be a posterity which cares for letters, I dare to hope that it will respect me." The sincerity which underlies this statement, combined with a certain lack of humour which peers through its naïveté, points to two of the principal characteristics of Patmore's earlier poetry; characteristics which came to be almost unconsciously merged and harmonized as his style and his intention drew together into unity.thumb|"Spring Cottage, Hamstead, 1860." Caricature by [[Max Beerbohm.]]
His later themes shifted from love to grief, loss, death, and immortality, which he explored through poetic imagery and varying forms in the odes of The Unknown Eros. The collection contains passages and entire poems focused on these concepts, utilizing structured melody and spiritual themes.