Name Elijah Fenton Books The Life of John Milton | Role Poet | |
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Died 1730, Easthampstead, United Kingdom | ||
Elijah Fenton (20 May 1683 – 16 July 1730) was an English poet, biographer and translator.
Life
Born in Shelton (now Stoke-on-Trent), and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, for a time he acted as secretary to the Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery in Flanders, and was then Master of Sevenoaks Grammar School.
In 1707, Fenton published a book of poems. He later became tutor to Sir William Trumbull's son at Easthampstead Park in Berkshire and is now best known as the assistant of his neighbour, Alexander Pope, in his translation of the Odyssey, of which he 'Englished' the first, fourth, nineteenth, and twentieth books, catching the manner of his master so completely that it is hardly possible to distinguish between their work; while thus engaged he published (1723) a successful tragedy, Marianne. His later contributions to literature were a Life of John Milton, and as an editor of Edmund Waller's Poems (1729).
He died on 16 July 1730, and is buried in the churchyard of Stoke Parish Church, Stoke-on-Trent.
There is a memorial to him on the wall of St Michael and St Mary Magdalene's Church, Easthampstead, with an epitaph by Alexander Pope. This reads:-