born Dec. 24, 1754, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, Eng.
died Feb. 3, 1832, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
English poet.
Reared in an impoverished seacoast village, Crabbe initially became a surgeon. In 1780 he left for London, where his poem The Village (1783) brought him fame; written partly as a protest against Oliver Goldsmith 's Deserted Village (1770), it was Crabbe's attempt to show the misery of rural poverty. The Newspaper followed in 1785, but he did not publish again until 1807. In "The Parish Register," he used the register of births, deaths, and marriages to depict the life of a rural community. Considered the last of the Augustan poets, he wrote in heroic couplets. His story of the isolated and violent Peter Grimes in The Borough became the basis of a famous opera by Benjamin Britten .