Criticism from the early part of the 20th century is effusive in its praise of Thomas Chatterton, whose influence is said to have revolutionized the stilted art of poetry and laid the groundwork for verse as it is known today. Writing in the Mark Twain Quarterly in the late 1930s, Charles Edward Russell claimed that Chatterton reinvigorated poetry with a new sense of melody, leading the way for such master poets as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. For many poets down the ages, Chatterton's period pieces under the name Thomas Rowley — which were definitively proven to be by Chatteton's hand in 1778 — stand as his highest achievement.
According to the book "Deaths of the Poets," by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, Chatteron's tragic story truly broke into the public imagination after the up-and-coming painter Henry Willis chose Chatterton as the subject for his first publicly displayed work. "Chatterton," more commonly known as "The Death of Chatterton," strikingly portrays the dying poet in his final moments as a Christ-like figure. Around him are symbols of his wasted talent: a snuffed-out candle, a wilting rose, and a case of shredded poems. The painting caused a stir when it toured the galleries of Britain, especially in Manchester in 1857, where an estimated 1.3 million visitors, many of whom were new to the art of painting. "Chatterton" and its various copies created a new stereotype that would prove timeless and irreversibly create in the public's imagination an association between poets and tragic death, and the idea that artists martyr themselves for their art.
