Thomas Hood
born May 23, 1799, London
died May 3, 1845, London
English poet, journalist, and humorist whose
humanitarian verses, such as “The Song of the
Shirt” (1843), served as models for a whole
school of social-protest poets, not only in
Britain and the United States but in Germany and
Russia, where he was widely translated. He also
is notable as a writer of comic verse, having
originated several durable forms for that genre.
The son of a London bookseller, Hood became a
“sort of sub-editor” of the London Magazine
(1821–23) during its heyday, when its circle of
brilliant contributors included Charles Lamb,
Thomas De Quincey, and William Hazlitt. He later
went on to edit The Gem, the Comic Annual, and
Hood’s Magazine. In 1827 he published a volume
of poems strongly influenced by Keats, The Plea
of the Midsummer Fairies. Several of the poems
in it suggest that Hood might possibly have
become a poet of the first rank, and it is known
for the touching lyric I Remember, I Remember.
However, the success of his amusing Odes and
Addresses to Great People (1825), written in
collaboration with his brother-in-law, J.H.
Reynolds, virtually obliged him to concentrate
on humorous writing for the rest of his life.
His most considerable comic poem, Miss
Kilmansegg and Her Precious Leg, first appeared
in the New Monthly Magazine from October 1840 to
February 1841. There is something sinister about
Hood’s sense of humour, a trait that was to
reappear in the “black comedy” of the latter
20th century. His pages are thronged with comic
mourners and undertakers, and a corpse is always
good for a laugh. He was famous for his punning,
which appears at times to be almost a reflex
action, serving as a defense against painful
emotion. Of his later poems, “The Song of the
Shirt,” “The Lay of the Labourer” (1844), and
“The Bridge of Sighs” (1844) are moving protests
against social evils of the day—sweated labour,
unemployment, and the double sexual standard.
