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Robert Lowth ( ; 27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) was an English clergyman and academic who served as the
Bishop of Oxford The Bishop of Oxford is the diocesan bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Oxford in the Province of Canterbury; his seat is at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. The current bishop is Steven Croft (bishop), Steven Croft, following the Confirm ...
, Bishop of St Davids, Professor of Poetry and the author of one of the most influential textbooks of English grammar.


Life

Lowth was born in
Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, Great Britain, the son of Dr William Lowth, a clergyman and Biblical commentator. He was educated at
Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...
and became a scholar of
New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...
in 1729. Lowth obtained his BA in 1733 and his
Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
degree in 1737. In 1735, while still at Oxford, Lowth took orders in the
Anglican Church Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
and was appointed vicar of Ovington, Hampshire, a position he retained until 1741, when he was appointed Oxford Professor of Poetry. Bishop Lowth made a translation of the
Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...
, first published in 1778. The Seventh-day Adventist theologian E. J. Waggoner said in 1899 that Lowth's translation of Isaiah was "without doubt, as a whole, the best English translation of the prophecy of
Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "Yahweh is salvation"; also known as Isaias or Esaias from ) was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. The text of the Book of Isaiah refers to Isaiah as "the prophet" ...
". In 1750 he was appointed Archdeacon of Winchester. In 1752 he resigned the professorship at Oxford and married Mary Jackson. Shortly afterwards, in 1753, Lowth was appointed rector of East Woodhay. In 1754 he was awarded a Doctorate in Divinity by Oxford University, for his treatise on
Hebrew poetry {{Short description, Disambiguation page Hebrew poetry is poetry written in the Hebrew language. It encompasses such things as: * Biblical poetry, the poetry found in the poetic books of the Hebrew Bible * Piyyut, religious Jewish liturgical poe ...
entitled ''Praelectiones Academicae de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum'' (''On the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews''). This derives from a series of lectures and was originally published in Latin. An English translation was published by George Gregory in 1787 as ''"Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews"''. This and subsequent editions include the life of Bishop Lowth as a preface. There was a further edition issued in 1815. This was republished in North America in 1829 with some additional notes. However, apart from those notes, the 1829 edition is less useful to a modern reader. This is because the editor of that edition chose to revert to citing many of the scriptural passages that Lowth uses as examples, and some of the annotations by Michaelis) and others, in Latin. Lowth was appointed a fellow of the Royal Societies of London and
Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...
in 1765. He was consecrated bishop of St Davids in Wales in 1766; however, before the end of the year he was translated to the English see of Oxford. He remained Bishop of Oxford until 1777 when he was appointed
Bishop of London The bishop of London is the Ordinary (church officer), ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury. By custom the Bishop is also Dean of the Chapel Royal since 1723. The diocese covers of 17 boroughs o ...
as well as dean of the chapel royal and privy councillor. In 1783 he was offered the chance to become
Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...
, but declined due to failing health. Lowth was good friends with the Scottish Enlightenment figure
David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...
, as noted by the prominent Scottish bookseller Andrew Millar. Millar commented that "Hume and he are very great, tho' one orthodox and ye other Hedretox". Lowth wrote a Latin epitaph, ''Cara, Vale'' ("Dear one, farewell!") on the death of his daughter Maria. Much admired in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was set to music by the English composer John Wall Callcott.From ''New England Magazine'', 183
Cara vale (John Wall Callcott)
accessed 20 February 2018
Lowth died in 1787, and was buried in the churchyard of All Saints Church, Fulham. Lowth's library was sold by auction by R. H. Evans on 15 January 1823 and five following days, along with the books of his son (also Robert, Rector of Hinton Ampnor, d. 1822). There is a copy of the catalogue at Cambridge University Library (shelfmark Munby.c.126(1)).


Old Testament scholarship

Lowth seems to have been the first modern Bible scholar to notice or draw attention to the poetic structure of the
Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...
and much of the prophetic literature of the
Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
. In Lecture 19 he sets out the classic statement of parallelism, which remains the most fundamental category for understanding Hebrew poetry. He identifies three forms of parallelism, the synonymous, antithetic and synthetic (i.e., balance only in the manner of expression without either
synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...
y or
antithesis Antithesis (: antitheses; Greek for "setting opposite", from "against" and "placing") is used in writing or speech either as a proposition that contrasts with or reverses some previously mentioned proposition, or when two opposites are introd ...
). This idea has been influential in Old Testament Studies to the present day.


Work on English grammar

Lowth is also remembered for his publication in 1762 of ''A Short Introduction to English Grammar''. Prompted by the absence of simple and
pedagogical Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
textbooks in his day, Lowth set out to remedy the situation. Lowth's grammar is the source of many of the prescriptive
shibboleth A shibboleth ( ; ) is any custom or tradition—usually a choice of phrasing or single word—that distinguishes one group of people from another. Historically, shibboleths have been used as passwords, ways of self-identification, signals of l ...
s that are studied in schools, and established him as the first of a long line of usage commentators who judge the English language in addition to describing it. An example of both is one of his footnotes: "''Whose'' is by some authors made the possessive case of ''which'', and applied to things as well as persons; I think, improperly." His most famous contribution to the study of grammar may have been his tentative suggestion that sentences ending with a
preposition Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
—such as "what did you ask for?"—are inappropriate in formal writing. (This is known as
preposition stranding Preposition stranding or p-stranding is the syntax, syntactic construction in which a so-called ''stranded'', ''hanging'', or ''dangling'' preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding object (grammar), object; for ex ...
.) In what may have been intentional
self-reference Self-reference is a concept that involves referring to oneself or one's own attributes, characteristics, or actions. It can occur in language, logic, mathematics, philosophy, and other fields. In natural or formal languages, self-reference ...
, Lowth used that very construction in discussing it. "This is an Idiom which our language is strongly inclined to; it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style in writing; but the placing of the Preposition before the Relative is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous; and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated Style." 2 Others had previously expressed this opinion; the earliest known is
John Dryden John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration (En ...
in 1672. Lowth's method included criticising "false syntax"; his examples of false syntax were culled from Shakespeare, the
King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...
,
John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...
,
John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...
,
Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...
,
Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early ...
, and other famous writers. His understanding of grammar, like that of all linguists of his period, was influenced by the study of
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, though he was aware that this was problematic and condemned "forcing the English under the rules of a foreign Language" 1. Thus Lowth condemns Addison's sentence "Who should I meet the other night, but my old friend?" on the grounds that the thing acted upon should be in the "Objective Case" (corresponding, as he says earlier, to an
oblique case In grammar, an oblique ( abbreviated ; from ) or objective case ( abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case and, sometimes, the vocative. A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role except as subject, ...
in Latin), rather than taking this example and others as evidence from noted writers that "who" can refer to direct objects. Lowth's dogmatic assertions appealed to those who wished for certainty and authority in their language. Lowth's grammar was not written for children; however, within a decade after it appeared, versions of it adapted for the use of schools had appeared, and Lowth's stylistic opinions acquired the force of law in the schoolroom. The textbook remained in standard usage throughout educational institutions until the early 20th century.


Literary critic

Lowth has been regarded as the first imagery critic of Shakespeare's plays and highlighted the importance of the imagery in the interpretation of motives and actions of characters and dramatic movement of the plot and narrative structure. 3


See also

*
Linguistic prescription Linguistic prescription is the establishment of rules defining publicly preferred Usage (language), usage of language, including rules of spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc. Linguistic prescriptivism may aim to establish a standard ...
* Lindley Murray


Notes

*1''A Short Introduction to English Grammar'', p. 107, condemning Richard Bentley's "corrections" of some of Milton's constructions. *2''A Short Introduction to English Grammar''., pp. 127–128. *3"Notes & Queries (OUP)" in 1983 Vol. 30, pp. 55–58 by Sailendra Kumar Sen, ''Robert Lowth :the first imagery critic of Shakespeare''.


Citations


Further reading

* Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, "The anonymity of Lowth's grammar". In: ''Ontheven aan de tijd. Linguïstisch-historische studies voor Jan Noordegraaf bij zijn zestigste verjaardag''. Ed. by Lo van Driel & Theo Janssen. Amsterdam: Stichting Neerlandistiek VU, Amsterdam & Münster: Nodus Publikationen 2008, 125–134. * Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I. M. (2010), ''The Bishop's Grammar: Robert Lowth and the Rise of Prescriptivism''. Oxford: OUP


External links


Robert Lowth
at th
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)

1815 Edition of ''"Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews"''
*

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
.] * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lowth, Robert 1710 births 1787 deaths Bishops of London Deans of the Chapel Royal Bishops of Oxford Bishops of St Davids Doctors of Divinity Archdeacons of Winchester (ancient) Fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of New College, Oxford Linguists of English Writers from Winchester People educated at Winchester College 18th-century Church of England bishops Oxford Professors of Poetry Burials at All Saints Church, Fulham 18th-century Welsh Anglican bishops 18th-century biblical scholars 18th-century Anglican theologians