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Alfred Austin

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Poet

The Resume

    (May 3, 1835-June 2, 1913)
    Born in Headingly, England, United Kingdom
    Poet laureate (1896-1913)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was named poet laureate only after the office went vacant for four years.
    Lord Salisbury admitted he named Austin as laureate ‘because no one else applied.’
    His first work as poet laureate, an ode on the Jameson raid (an unsuccessful attempt by Cecil Rhodes to overthrow the Boer government in South Africa), was so jingoistic that it earned a rebuke from Queen Victoria.
    When he was criticized about grammatical errors in one of his poems, he replied, ‘I dare not alter these things. They come to me from above.’

Why he might not be annoying:

    When he avoided politics and wrote about nature, he could be quite charming.
    His two most derided lines (‘Over the electric wires the message came/He is no better, he is much the same’ about the death of Lord Tennyson) were not actually written by him.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 87.50% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 10 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 8 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 14 Votes: 78.57% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 20 Votes: 65.00% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 22 Votes: 68.18% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 51 Votes: 76.47% Annoying
    In 2007, Out of 46 Votes: 69.57% Annoying