John Norris

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John Norris (1657 - 1711), philosopher and poet, educated at Oxford, took orders, and lived a quiet and placid life as a country parson and thinker. In philosophy he was a Platonist and mystic, and was an early opponent of Locke. His poetry, with occasional fine thoughts, is full of far-fetched metaphors and conceits, and is not seldom dull and prosaic. From 1692 he held George Herbert's benefice of Bemerton.

Among his 23 works are An Idea of Happiness (1683), Miscellanies (1687), Theory and Regulation of Love (1688), Theory of the Ideal and Intelligible World (1701-4), and a Discourse concerning the Immortality of the Soul (1708).

This article is originally from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.