Richard Blackmore

King Arthur (Dodo Press) Richard Blackmore

Sir Richard Blackmore (1654-1729) was an English poet and physician, whose works earned royal gratitude, and provoked artistic scorn and retorts from other writers such as Alexander Pope, Tom Brown, and John Dryden. He was educated at Westminster School very briefly, and he entered St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1669. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1674 and his MA in 1676. He remained at Oxford as a tutor until 1682 but then left for a European tour. He ended up at the University of Padua, where he studied for a doctorate in pure medicine, which he received in 1684. Blackmore supported the Glorious Revolution, and his epic poem Prince Arthur, which appeared in 1695, was a celebration of William III. William made Blackmore physician-in-ordinary (a position he would hold with Queen Anne as well) and also knighted him in 1697. Blackmore's other works include: A Satyr Against Wit (1700), Eliza (1705), An Advice to the Poets (1906), The Nature of Man (1711), The Creation (1712), Essays Upon Several Subjects (1716) and Alfred (1723).