Eaton Stannard Barrett
Eaton Stannard Barrett was an Irish writer born in Cork, with familial ties to County Meath. He was educated in Wandsworth, London, and later attended Trinity College in Dublin, graduating in 1805. Initially pursuing a career in law after joining the Middle Temple, Barrett eventually shifted his focus to writing, gaining recognition as a political satirist. His first notable work, a satirical poem titled "All the Talents," was published in 1807 under the pseudonym Polypus and received a positive response. Over the next few years, he continued to produce satires, though his later works explored themes of social criticism and the role of women in society. Barrett's novel "The Heroine," published in 1813, notably influenced Jane Austen's "Emma." Despite his prominence during his lifetime, Barrett's contributions to literature have been largely overshadowed, and he is less well-known today. He passed away in Glamorganshire, Wales, in 1820.
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Subject Terms
Eaton Stannard Barrett
Writer
- Born: 1786
- Birthplace: Cork, Ireland
- Died: March 20, 1820
- Place of death: Glamorganshire, Wales
Biography
Eaton Stannard Barrett was born at Cork, Ireland. His family was from Navan in County Meath, Ireland. Both Eaton and his brother Richard were educated at a school in Wandsworth, near London. Eaton went to Trinity College, Dublin, and received his B.A. in 1805. That November, Eaton entered the Middle Temple in London. According to some sources, he then became a barrister and practiced in London. However, others believe that Eaton Barrett abandoned the law to become a full-time writer.
Barrett’s first publication, a verse satire on the Whig government, appeared in 1807 under the pseudonym of Polypus. It was called All the Talents: A Satirical Poem in Three Dialogues, and it sold well. Several more satires followed over the next two years. The first two were unsuccessful. However, the third, a prose satire on the Prince of Wales, was more popular. At this time Barrett changed pseudonyms. As Cervantes Hogg, he obviously meant to claim kinship with the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes.
However, with England threatened with an invasion by Napoleon, political satire was becoming less popular. In 1809, Barrett ventured into social criticism with a prose attack on the vices of the age. The following year he published Woman: A Poem, one of a number of works by various writers that urged women to cultivate the domestic virtues instead of venturing into areas rightly reserved for men, as the women of the French Revolution had done. Barrett returned to this theme in his novel The Heroine: Or, Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader (1813), in which he demonstrated the damage that can be done to a young girl when she reads novels written by feminists and by English Jacobins (a group of social reformers).
Barrett wrote one satirical play, My Wife! What Wife? A Comedy in Three Acts, but he then returned to satire. During his latter years, he also wrote a number of reviews. Barrett died in Glamorganshire, Wales, in 1820. Though he was well-known in his own time as a political satirist and as a social critic, he is now largely forgotten. His work The Heroine is of significance primarily because it inspired Jane Austen to write another story of a misguided young woman, the novel Emma (1815).