William McGonagall was famous due to being regarded as the worst poet in British history!
A Scotsman from Dundee who over 25 years wrote some 200 poems.
They were so bad that he kept being asked to recite his poems at events all over Scotland and the UK.
The problem with them.
The complaint about him was that he
- Only felt that poetry should rhyme.
- Wasn’t interested in the more sophisticated requirements, for example, that it should scan.
- Was deaf to the use of metaphor for rhetorical effect.
However, all this had the effect of making his work unintentionally comic.
Of course, he didn’t think he was bad.
He felt they were all taking the mickey, while the audiences thought he was a music hall comic, which meant that for 25 years he delighted and appalled audiences all over Scotland, and sometimes they even threw rotten fish at him, which led to him being banned by some local authorities, inevitably increasing his popularity.
This is his clever trick.
He realised that for him to succeed he needed the support of a famous person, so he wrote a letter to Queen Victoria, and received a letter of rejection from one of her staff that included the words “the queen thanked him for his interest…. “. McGonagall took this as praise for his work and used it as such, even though, of course, it wasn’t!
He had a lifetime cause.
The interesting thing about him is that throughout his life he campaigned against excessive drinking. He even read his poems about the evils of drink in pubs and bars, something the landlords didn’t like, while he didn’t always impress the patrons, even though they did enjoy the comedy, of course, while buyimg drinks,
During his lifetime he published over 200 poems, which he printed on broadsheets, then sold in the street. He even published them in books, unfortunately, this didn’t make him much money, which meant that when he died in 1902, he was pauper.
However, his poems live on today, so he can’t have been all bad.
Isn’t history fun!
10 questions to discuss:
- What made William McGonagall famous in British history?
- How many poems did William McGonagall write over his lifetime?
- Why were McGonagall’s poems considered so bad?
- How did McGonagall’s insistence on rhyming contribute to his reputation as a bad poet?
- How did audiences typically react to McGonagall’s recitations of his poems?
- What tactic did McGonagall use to garner attention and support for his poetry?
- Despite his lack of success, what noble cause did McGonagall campaign against throughout his life?
- How did McGonagall distribute and sell his poems during his lifetime?
- What was the financial outcome for McGonagall despite publishing over 200 poems?
- Despite his lack of financial success, why do McGonagall’s poems still have a legacy today?
For more about him:
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/william-mcgonagall/
https://mypoeticside.com/poets/william-topaz-mcgonagall-poems
https://poets.org/poem/tay-bridge-disaster