#[sighs dramatically a la thomas thorne]

[baynton]

i'm now questioning my Subtlety after the reveal that TWO PEOPLE SUSPECTED ME of being their anon dammit

[telling-ghost-s-stories]

Thomas would definitely have a Masters in English literature. I wonder what was his university days were like?

According to that era (Regency), English Univeristies worked on an Independent Studiers vs “on the foundation” situation—you were either bright and paid to be at school or worked there, or you were from a wealthy or semi-wealthy background and paid your way in (the former group). I have a feeling Thomas, especially on the assumption he was in life a relation of the the owners of Button House, if not an owner, he was part of the wealthier upper class. I feel he’d fall into the Gentlemen Commoners or Batle class (this lingo is from the info I found on this very helpful website, as I know very little about terms and rankings of early 19th Century gentlemens’ higher education).

I also like to imagine he certainly aimed for a degree in something like Literature/English, and possibly aspired to become a prolific author or professor, but then began reading information and work about and by his contemporaries and more radical/Bohemian works and ventures, passionate poetry, etc, and set his sites more on sonnets and couplets than more “serious” novels and dissertations. Perhaps he decided it was a way for him to make a name, and it was in vogue and what the upper class were all into. I like the picture/feel it’s in character that he was already sub-par in his written work, “borrowed” a lot, and constantly over dramatic and entirely incorrect in his own writings and interpretations, so felt he was more inclined to be an artistic type than one for a full scholarly life. He passed, yes, but his writnf wasn’t bad, but certainly wasn’t groundbreaking, and his poetry was more along the lines of pre-Vampyre Polidori than couplets a la Keats. He got the marks and half-applause/backhanded praise because of his prestige/money, being and Independent scholar, but was generally looked at as insufferable and bland—to quote Shakespeare’s As You Like It, “Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow.” Though his work came off like any other up-and-coming sudden wishful artist, he genuinely was trying to be (and under the impression he genuinely was) a poetic genius, who could easily rival Shakespeare, Keats, or, yes, Byron.

The third name mentioned, he perhaps, had known when he was younger and in a self-decided rivalry with, or met when was attending or just left feeling like he was essentially the equivalent Hamlet the poet, educated and with a family with an estate tonreturn to or be visiting, when he met Byron, who took his recent work from University (which actually WAS good) Thomas Thorne was planning to publish and stamped his name on it, or pulled a phrase or two Thomas insisted were absolutely his, which lead to something, in the not too distant future, resulting in Thomas’s bullet-related demise.

On an unrelated note, the 🖤 Thomas 🖤 trend is still coming in strong with these asks.