Thomas Chatterton and Barry MacSweeney: The Influence of Anxiety.

Abstract

The influence of Thomas Chatterton on Barry MacSweeney is well documented. The Newcastle born -underground‖ p oet M acSweeney t hought t hat his p oet ic career resembled t he unsung gen ius of t he lat e ei ght eent h cent ury , Thomas Chatt ert on. According t o MacSweeney , Chat t ert on‘s untimely death was due to the rejection and deception that he faced from his patron-publisher. Chatterton famously impersonated a medieval monk and claimed that his Rowley Poems were found manuscripts from the thirteenth century. His abortive attempt to prove himself a genius and consequent suicide inculcate a sense of melancholy in MacSweeney, which evidently permeates int o his -Brot her Wolf‖. However, t he influ ence is more t han a Bloo mian an xiet y of cap t uring or even caricaturing the predecessor. Instead, MacSweeney tries to simulate the life of his alter ego — his - brot her wolf‖, and p art icip at e in a rit ualist ic d eat h. T he deat h dep ict ed in M acSween ey ‘s p oem manifests a lyrical dispersal of the material body of a poetic figure as if to guarantee poetic geniuses an immaterial niche beyond the reach of selfish critics and patron-publishers.