Frederic William Henry Myers | |
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Born | February 6, 1843 Keswick, Cumberland |
Died |
January 17, 1901 (aged 57) Rome |
Occupation | Psychical researcher, writer |
Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843, in Keswick, Cumberland – 17 January 1901, in Rome) was a poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers' work on psychical research and his ideas about a "subliminal self" were influential in his time, but have not been accepted by the scientific community.
Myers was the son of Revd Frederic Myers (1811–1851) and his second wife Susan Harriet Myers nee Marshall (1811–1896). He was a brother of poet Ernest Myers (1844–1921) and of Dr. Arthur Thomas Myers (1851–1894). His maternal grandfather was the wealthy industrialist John Marshall (1765–1845).
Myers was educated at Cheltenham College and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. in 1864, and university prizes, including the Bell, Craven, Camden and Chancellor's Medal, though he was forced to resign the Camden medal for 1863 after accusations of plagiarism. He was a Fellow of Trinity College from 1865 to 1874 and college lecturer in classics from 1865 to 1869. In 1872 be became an Inspector of schools.
In 1867, Myers published a long poem, St Paul, which became popular. The poem included the words of the hymn Hark what a sound, and too divine for hearing. This was followed in 1882 by The Renewal of Youth and Other Poems. He also wrote books of literary criticism, in particular Wordsworth (1881) and Essays, Classical and Modern (in two volumes, 1883), which included an essay on Virgil.
As a young man, Myers was involved in homosexual relationships with Arthur Sidgwick, the poet John Addington Symonds, and possibly Lord Battersea. He later fell in love with Annie Eliza, the wife of his cousin Walter James Marshall. Myers' relationship with his cousin's wife has been questioned by different researchers to be sexual or Platonic. Annie committed suicide in September 1876 by drowning.