Alexander Smith
Alexander Smith was a Scottish poet and writer born into a working-class family, experiencing a challenging childhood marked by illness and limited schooling. Despite these hardships, he developed a passion for literature, spurred by stories of the hero Ossian, and began formal education in Glasgow during the late 1830s. However, family financial struggles led him to follow his father into the pattern-making trade. In 1847, Smith joined the Addison Society, a literary club where he found his voice and began publishing poetry in the early 1850s. His first collection gained significant attention, allowing him to travel to London and gain acclaim. Yet, his literary success was marred by a critical review and allegations of plagiarism, leading to the decline of his poetic career. After marrying Flora MacDonald in 1857, he shifted focus to essays, biography, and literary criticism, achieving some success but facing health challenges that ultimately led to his early death at thirty-seven. Today, he is often remembered for his "spasmodic" poetry, overshadowing his contributions as an essayist.
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Alexander Smith
Poet
- Born: December 31, 1830
- Birthplace: Kilmarnock, Scotland
- Died: January 5, 1867
Biography
Born into a struggling working-class family headed by a pattern maker as the first of several children, Alexander Smith experienced no regular schooling as a child. When his family’s straitened circumstances forced a temporary relocation to Paisley, Scotland, Smith did begin to learn to read—only to be struck down, with his sister, by a dreadful fever. The illness ultimately killed her, and it left Smith with permanent partial facial paralysis and a lingering sense of morbidity.
As a child, Smith had been entertained with oral renditions of the legends of the hero Ossian, and the literary bent he exhibited early flourished when he finally began his formal education in Glasgow in the late 1830’s. This brief flirtation with the literary life was cut short, however, due to his family’s need for money. Smith followed his father into the pattern-making trade. The dreariness of his existence was somewhat relieved when, in 1847, Smith was invited to join a newly formed literary club called the Addison Society. Smith’s first contribution, a personal essay he read aloud to the club, was received with awed silence. He had found his calling.
By the early 1850’s, Smith was regularly publishing poetry in periodicals, and his first collection was so eagerly anticipated that it saw four editions in five years. The profits from these sales enabled Smith to travel to London, where he was lionized. Returning to Scotland, Smith briefly served as editor of the Glasgow Miscellany literary magazine before taking a permanent position as secretary of the University of Edinburgh in 1854.
That same year, however, a critical review of Smith’s works in verse—in particular his “spasmodic” first long published poem, A Life-Drama—together with charges of plagiarism, brought his poetic career to an abrupt halt. Attempts to revive it failed, but after Smith married Flora MacDonald in the spring of 1857, he began supplementing his university income with familiar essays, biography, and literary criticism. He made a success of these writings, but his efforts seemed to exhaust him. After succumbing to one illness after another, he died just after his thirty- seventh birthday. Due in part to the sheer brevity of his career, Smith is remembered—if he is remembered at all—for his “spasmodic” verses, rather than for the graceful essays that were his true forte.