'To a Young Lady, With Some Lampreys' - John Gay

‘Should I tonight eat Sago cream,
‘’Twould make me blush to tell my dream;
‘If I eat Lobster, ‘tis so warming,
‘That ev’ry man I see looks charming;
‘Wherefore had not the filthy fellow
‘Laid Rochester upon your pillow?
‘I vow and swear, I think the present
‘Had been as modest and as decent.’

‘To a Young Lady, With Some Lampreys’
John Gay
Published 1720

It’s been two weeks now since I last posted, and so I felt that something light-hearted was needed to herald my return to the cypersphere. This poem begins with a conventional romantic situation – the writer is assuming the persona of the hopeful lover, trying to find a present to give to his lady love.  This is the eighteenth century of course, so figures from classical mythology are inevitably mentioned: the ‘Atalanta’ referred to appears in Greek legend as a virgin huntress who was given a boar’s head by her ‘Hero’, Meleager.

The poetic voice of this poem (by which I mean the persona through which John Gay’s monologue is constructed), then continues to evaluate the appropriateness of various tokens of affection or love-gifts.  The rhetorical question ‘Why then send Lampreys?’ thus identifies his present and the reaction of incredulity he expects it to provoke.  A Lamprey is a type of eel-like fish, at the time widely assumed to be an aphrodisiac.  Accordingly, the following speech attributed to the ‘maiden Aunt’ (an indispensable accessory for every beautiful young eighteenth century heroine) includes references to other traditionally aphrodisiac foodstuffs, such as Sago cream and Lobster.  Best of all (from a literary perspective) is the assertion that the poet-lover is a ‘filthy fellow’ who might just as well have ‘Laid Rochester upon your pillow’.  If you have never read the poetry of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, then I can assure you it is not for the faint-hearted!  Indeed, its explicit nature has ensured its continuing popularity…  Hence the maiden Aunt expresses her indignation by suggesting that the present of Lampreys is as ‘modest and decent’ as a present of Rochester’s collected poems; that is, not very.

Of course, one might question the ‘maiden’ Aunt’s intimate knowledge of aphrodisiacs and their effects – there is likewise something amusing in her staunch belief that the ‘danger of undoing’ lies in prawns and shrimps, as if romantic sentiment was entirely a matter of digestion.  Classical allusion again comes to the fore here as ‘Dian’s maids’ alludes to any chaste virgin (Diana was the Roman goddess of wild animals and hunting, and usually associated with the moon and chastity).  In other words, if virtuous young women all started eating Lampreys, the maiden aunt has visions of complete sexual anarchy.  The final punchline comes from the poet, who admits that the Aunt would be right to think that he himself has no need of such aphrodisiac methods.  For him, the girl herself is quite sufficient to engage his attention and admiration; the real joke is that he has to resort to an aphrodisiac present to get her interested.

You can find this poem:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180840

(Free copy!!!! Useful for on-the-go reading…)

https://www.waterstones.com/book/selected-poems/john-gay/marcus-walsh/9781857547023(Although this volume does not appear to include today’s poem, it is a useful starting point if you want to read more of Gay’s poetry; also available on second-hand sites, for those on a tight budget!)

About John Gay:

John Gay (1685-1732) was a poet and playwright, and also a member of the Scriblerian group of writers (which included Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Dr. Arbuthnot, Thomas Parnell, and Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford).  His most famous work was a play entitled The Beggar’s Opera, a work so popular it is still sometimes performed today.  He is buried in Westminster Abbey, next to Geoffrey Chaucer.

Information for this blogpost was derived from these sources:

http://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Gay-British-author
(Encyclopædia Brittanica! A kind of more scholarly, and more accurate, Wikipedia)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180840

‘At Shotwig I chose to be married my dear

(A small country church, and to Saughall quite near);

For myself I had flattered in that rural scene
No other spectators around me would reign,
Excepting fair Flora, and the feathered train.
But trust me, when we to the village drew near,
The nymphs and the swains all in ranks did appear,
To see us fine folks; for sure, fine we must be,
When powdered, and dressed, à la mode de Paris!’

from Letter to a Sister, Giving an Account of the Author’s Wedding-Day

Priscilla Pointon
Written c. 1788; published 1794

It might seem affected or overblown to construct a ‘letter’ as a poem, but in fact there is a long and rather eminent tradition of letter-poems in the eighteenth century (a format that is technically known as ‘epistolary verse’).  Bill Overton has noted that ‘The verse epistle was a key form in eighteenth-century Britain’, but also marks the distinction between literary verses that were written as letters, and letters that happened to be written in verse.  For me, Pointon’s poem would seem to fall into the latter category.   In an earlier blogpost we looked at Alexander Pope’s Letter to Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, a good example of an epistolary verse that was always intended for publication.  The gap of six years between the composition of Pointon’s poem and its ultimate publication would seem to imply a rather less formal motivation behind this poem’s composition.  Pointon’s husband sadly died by 1794, and Roger Lonsdale has suggested that Pointon’s ‘desolate situation’ following this may have prompted the publication of the new anthology of her poems in which this epistolary verse appeared.

In many ways, it is simply a narrative account of a rather delightful wedding day, involving lots of driving around through the countryside and eating.  Such a fun way to spend a day!  Like much eighteenth-century poetry, there is also ample use of classical characters, such as the reference to ‘Flora’ which (before margarine was invented) referred to the Roman goddess of flowers and spring.  When Pointon writes that she was getting married in the country in the expectation that ‘No other spectators around me would reign, / Excepting fair Flora and the feathered train’ what she is really saying is that she thought the only company would be the flowers and the birds.  Rather a nice way of putting it, eh? 

View of Parkgate today: the wall you can see at the bottom of
the picture would have originally been the quayside.  You can
also see Wales in the distance, visible as a blue line of hills.

For me, this poem is even more enjoyable because I am actually familiar with many of the locations which it refers to.  The historical city of Chester is hopefully already known to many.  It’s a glorious old place that, once upon a time, was an important Roman port; walking around the Roman walls that still encircle the city was a much enjoyed activity in my childhood, as was playing around the equally splendid ruins of a Roman amphitheatre.  I don’t want to start sounding like a travelogue here, but seriously it is definitely a place worth visiting!  Parkgate – one of the places to which the wedding party drive in the poem – is also of significant eighteenth-century interest: Lady Emma Hamilton, the mistress of the sea commander Lord Nelson, was born in nearby Ness and used to often visit Parkgate for the waters.  There is still a seawall at Parkgate today, and a lovely view across to Wales, but the River Dee has long since silted into a lush green marshland.  Now it is a major wildlife site, with an award-winning ice-cream shop across the road (highly recommended!).  It’s absolutely mindblowing to think how much, yet also how little, the place will have changed from when Pointon travelled there on her wedding-day, about 230 years ago.  

Happy reading!  As always, feel free to ask questions and/or leave comments!

You can find this poem:

Roger Lonsdale (ed.), Eighteenth-century women poets: an Oxford anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)
(available from numerous book shops online and on the high street: an excellent volume!  Last time I mentioned this book I said it looked like an interesting read: see, I was right!  The non-italicised ‘from’ reveals that this is an extract from a longer poem)

Trying to find sources of Priscilla Pointon’s poetry has actually been surprisingly difficult, so I have attached a reading of this poem from Lonsdale’s book:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=budbAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:k_O5naWEZggC&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAmoVChMIpK_p0pGDxwIVwkAUCh1siABS#v=onepage&q&f=false

(a link to a googlebooks preview from which some more of Pointon’s poetry can be accessed!)

About Priscilla Pointon:

Finding information about Pointon has proved rather more challenging than anticipated!  Pointon would seem to have been born in about 1740, and died in 1801.  From a fascinating seminar talk given by Kathleen Keown at Oxford earlier in the year, I learnt that Pointon was a woman who basically made her living from her poetry.  Having lost her eyesight at the age of 12, her poetry was composed inside her head and then written down by an assistant.  As such, Pointon became very good at extempore poetry, that is poetry made up on the spur of the moment (an enormously popular genre in the eighteenth-century).  Keown’s talk gave a fascinating insight into the life of a professional woman, whose disability did not prevent her from travelling widely around the country in search of subscribers willing to commit funds for the publication of her poetry.  Kathleen Keown is on Twitter @kathleenkeown and regularly tweets about matters relating to 18th century women’s poetry.

Information for this blogpost was derived from the following books:

Roger Lonsdale (ed.), Eighteenth-century women poets: an Oxford anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)

Bill Overton, The Eighteenth-Century British Verse Epistle (Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

(A useful source of more information about epistolary verse!!)

'The True-Born Englishman. A Satire' - Daniel Defoe

‘A horrid Medly of Thieves and Drones,

Who ransack’d Kingdoms, and dispeopl’d Towns.

The Pict and Painted Britain, Treach’rous Scot,

By Hunger, Theft, and Rapine, hither brought.

Norwegian Pirates, Buccaneering Danes,
Whose red-hair’d Offspring ev’ry where remains.
Who join’d with Norman-French, compound the Breed
From whence your True-Born Englishmen proceed.’

‘The True-Born Englishman.  A Satire’

Daniel Defoe

1701

At first glance, it is difficult to know what to make of this poem.  In its earliest stages the poem positively fumes acid from the earnest bigotry with which Defoe constructs stereotypes for just about every kind of nationality that existed at the time.  Readers be reassured, however: this text was in fact intended as a critique of the racist elements of English society who thought the ‘True-Born Englishman’ was a being altogether superior to the rest of humanity.  He does this by first listing all the faults that such racist detractors might identify with these supposedly inferior nationalities, and then by pointing out that the ‘True-Born Englishman’ of the title is in fact descended from all these various nations through Britain’s mottled history of invasions, raids, violence, and intermarriage (or similar).  Thus he asserts the fundamental absurdity of claiming that any Englishman is ‘True-Born’, as they are all basically descended from what the racists would term ‘foreigners’.  To avoid the risk of misinterpretation, Defoe provides the helpful pointer in his Preface that he is ‘one that would be glad to see Englishmen behave themselves better to Strangers’ (with 'strangers' in this context meaning foreigners). 



Daniel Defoe, engraving by M. Van der Gucht,
after a portrait by J. Taverner, first half of the
18th century.  This copy was, er, 'borrowed' from
the Encyclopædia Britannica.  The earliest image
of Defoe was recently discovered by Joseph Hone,
and is an illustration on a pack of playing cards
(in which Defoe is depicted being pilloried as
punishment for penning some political pamphlets).

Indeed, the importance of this Preface as a means of interpreting the poem would seem to be very great. At the Defoe Society’s biennial conference this week, Andreas Mueller gave a very interesting talk on later reprints of the text, in particular American reprints; somewhat amusingly, an abridged version was published in Philadelphia around the time of the British occupation of that same city during the American Revolutionary War.  The removal of the Preface was one of various alterations which, Muller showed, had reconstructed the text as a depiction of the ‘True-Born Englishman’ as a somewhat vain and inglorious individual.  Defoe would probably have been horrified.



For the aim of his original poem would seem to have been to promote racial integration rather than to just annoy everyone.  Defoe claims in his poem’s Preface that ‘The End of Satire is Reformation’, referring here to the reform of absurd or offensive ideologies; in particular, he is keen to whip up support for the Dutch King William of Orange (the Protestant William III who, together with his wife Mary, had just usurped the English throne from Mary’s father James II).  Yet the sense that this is primarily a piece of political propaganda is perhaps dispelled by considering the broader attitude towards foreigners that is featured across Defoe’s writings.  As Angela Gehling demonstrated in her conference talk, Defoe was somewhat unique in his depiction (across various works) of Spaniards as paragons of honesty and courteousness.  At the time, Spaniards were often regarded as being the complete opposite of this (a stereotype which Gehling demonstrated still features in popular culture today). 

These are complex issues and this is a complicated poem, but don’t let this put you off: it is also an enormously engaging and thought provoking text, and the issues it deals with surrounding racism and politics remain vividly relevant in today’s political arena.  Frankly, this is a poem that everyone should read, whether or not they regard themselves as ‘True-Born’ English. 

Happy reading!  As always, feel free to ask questions and leave comments!

You can find this poem:

http://thetruebornenglishman.co.uk/

(a digital edition of the original, first edition of Defoe’s poem, compiled by Luke Dawson; a very concise, useful, and free way to enjoy this text)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/True-Born-Englishman-Satire-Daniel-Defoe/dp/B00UL585MY/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1437847223&sr=1-4&keywords=true+born+englishman

(a new printed version of the book… a word to the wise, though, don’t bother reading the Amazon reviews.  One of them claims that this is ‘Austen from a man’s point of view’, and I have to admit it has been a very long time since I read a sentence that was such complete tosh!)

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173337

(This is a short extract from the poem on Poetry Foundation, which omits the most vitriolic aspects of the poem.  It is nonetheless interesting if you just want a quick snapshot of the style of the piece)

About the Defoe Society Conference:

The Defoe Society ( http://www.defoesociety.org/ ) was established in 2006 to promote research upon, and interest in, the works of Daniel Defoe, and to basically just spread the word about what a masterful and engaging writer he is.  This week’s conference was an opportunity for Defoe scholars from all over the world to come together and exchange ideas; the people I’ve referenced in my discussion above are only a very small sample of what was a vibrant and absorbing array of academic knowledge.  To gain access to a broader range of the thoughts and ideas that were being mooted, search for the hashtag #Defoe15 on Twitter to look back over the excellent live-tweeting of Stephen Gregg ( @gregg_sh ) during the conference.  Because literary research is for everyone, not just academics!

You can find out more about Defoe:

http://www.defoesociety.org/defoe.html

(The Defoe Society website pages have lots of fascinating info)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe

(Wikipedia!!)

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Daniel-Defoe

Encyclopædia Britannica (a more sophisticated, and perhaps more reliable, form of Wikipedia)

'Soliloquy on an Empty Purse' - Mary Jones

‘Like wax thy silver melted down,
Touch but the brass, and lo! ‘twas gone:
And gold would never with thee stay,
For gold had wings, and flew away.’

Soliloquy on an Empty Purse

Mary Jones
published 1750 in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse

I read this poem a few weeks ago and I have to admit I fell in love with it at once.  It might have been written over two hundred and fifty years ago, but the subject is one that remains poignantly relevant: money, and the lack of it.  By addressing the ‘Empty Purse’ of the title as if it was an actual character (a technique known as personification), Jones is able to diminish the sense of a lonely poverty.  This then contributes to the ultimately positive tone of the whole poem, in which she optimistically looks for the good in her situation.  Now, she realises, she is safe ‘Amidst temptations thick and strong’, and from those who would want to abstract her money, namely the imagined ‘pick-purse’ and ingratiating ‘flatterer’ to which she refers.



There are a couple of unusual words in the poem which it might be helpful to have clarified before reading.  The word ‘disembogue’ means to ‘emerge or be discharged in quantity’; in the poem this refers to the constant emergence of money from the purse (eventually leaving it empty).   ‘Prorogue’ means to discontinue or interrupt something.  Thus Jones writes to the purse that:

‘Yet used so oft to disembogue,

No prudence could thy fate prorogue.’





In other words, the purse is so used to pouring out its wealth that no prudence on her part could have prevented its ultimate, sad fate of emptiness.

 The final image with which she consoles herself is simply masterful with its employment of the traditional image of the poet/artist figure starving in a garret:

Two eighteenth century purses; I found this image on Pinterest,

but I believe it originally derives from a listing on Christies website.

The Pinterest page is here:

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/229613280976151344/

'For who a poet’s purse will rob?

And softly sweet in garret high

Will I thy [the purse’s] virtues magnify;

Outsoaring flatterers’ stinking breath,

And gently rhyming rats to death.’


Samuel Johnson (author of the subject of a previous blogpost, The Vanity of Human Wishes, and a tremendously important figure in the eighteenth-century literary scene) approvingly described Mary Jones as ‘The Chantress’. Whether he meant this in terms of poetic ‘chanting’ or as an ‘enchantress’, or both, is perhaps open to debate; what is certain, however, is that this poem is pure eighteenth-century magic.

About today’s author:

Mary Jones would seem to have had a fairly ordinary background.  Born in Oxford in 1707, she lived there all her life, mostly with her brother Revd Oliver Jones (who became senior chaplain of Christ Church College).  The entry for her in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is frustratingly short, and notes that ‘Information on Jones’s life is mostly drawn from her Miscellanies in Prose and Verse’.  Roger Lonsdale (one of the true greats of eighteenth-century literary scholarship) describes Jones as ‘one of the most intelligent and amusing women writers of her period’, a claim more than justified by today’s poem.

You can find this poem:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/183917

(a free copy available from the Poetry Foundation)

Roger Lonsdale (ed.), Eighteenth-century women poets: an Oxford anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, new edn. 1990)

(This looks to be an enormously absorbing read: I went looking for its publishing details for the reference here and ended up buying a (delightfully economical second-hand) copy)

Some more of Mary Jones’s poetry has been published in this volume:

http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111882475X.html
(a brand new copy of this book might be a little on the pricey side for modest budgets, but fortunately its incorporation on university reading lists means that there is usually a ready supply of substantially cheaper second-hand copies available from reputable dealers)

You can find out more about Mary Jones:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0iW0fTD84kgC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=Mary+Jones+poetess&source=bl&ots=EQj3oipZUV&sig=zLTeJ-QenRxYMXqt2Nyu3LZ76MI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hpKZVcenIMm0sQHx94C4BA&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Mary%20Jones%20poetess&f=false

(this looks to be an enormously absorbing book, and when my own purse is a little less empty I might have to go shopping… In the meantime, this free preview on googlebooks gives access to much of the chapter on Mary Jones)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Jones_(poet)
(not forgetting the ever useful Wikipedia)

https://uk.pinterest.com/hcowans/18th-century-purses/

(This has nothing to do with Mary Jones, but if you are on Pinterst these eighteenth century purses are well worth looking at.  It should always be kept in mind, though, that it is typically more elaborate/expensive objects that survive through history; the poet’s purse about which Mary Jones writes would probably have been somewhat less glamorous)

Information for this blogpost was derived from these sources:

Richard Greene, & Revd William R. Jones, ‘Jones, Mary (1707-1778)’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press 2004-15.  [accessed 3/7/2015]

Roger Lonsdale (ed.), Eighteenth-century women poets: an Oxford anthology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, new edn. 1990)

 

Oxford Dictionaries Online http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

(a smaller, but free, version of the Oxford English Dictionary; a very useful resource!)

Lorna Sage, Germaine Greer, & Elaine Showalter, The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) p. 356 (the reference to the publication date of her poem)

Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford

'And sure, if aught below the seats divine
Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine:
A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.'

Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford, and Earl Mortimer

Alexander Pope

(1721)

Writing poetry that was dedicated to, and about, an individual was enormously popular in the eighteenth century.  Indeed, composing dedicatory verses was in widespread use as a way of gaining (financial) patronage from a wealthy noble.  This poem, however, is a rather more genuine expression of respect and esteem.  The poem’s author, Alexander Pope, and its subject, Robert Harley, the Earl of Oxford were good friends, and both were part of the influential group of writers known as the Scriblerus Club (and which also included Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell, John Gay, and Dr. John Arbuthnot).  Unlike the other members of the group, Harley’s literary output was not in any way great, but he did leave a lasting legacy to British literature by gathering much of the collection of books, manuscripts, and pamphlets which his son would later donate to the nation to form the foundation of the British Library (the photo depicts Harley's portrait outside the Maps and Manuscripts reading room in the British Library).

Today’s poem owes much to the friendship that existed between the Scriblerians (as they are now referred to).  After Parnell’s death in 1718, Alexander Pope prepared an anthology of the late writer’s poems, composing this dedicatory verse to preface the collection and delivering a draft copy of the poem to its subject Harley on 21 October 1721.  Although this might be seen as somewhat self-advertising, an exchange of poetry had been an important part of the relationship between the friends during the heyday of their Scriblerus Club meetings in 1714.  Indeed, it is to these meetings that today’s poem seems to refer when it states how Harley was:

 

‘Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;

For Swift and him, despised the farce of state,

The sober follies of the wise and great;

Dexterous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit,

And pleased to ‘scape from Flattery to Wit’
(lines 7-12)

 The sense here is of the group as aloof from a world of petty political wrangling, free from the party politics that divided the government and thus able to find satirical humour in all the intrigue and political posturing.  Yet the poem is also very much about Harley’s own place in the political arena.  Having served as Lord Treasurer from 23 May 1711 to 27 July 1714 (effectively equivalent to the modern day role of Prime Minister), Harley had been at the very centre of the British government through what was perhaps the country’s most important political crisis in the early eighteenth century: the problem of who should inherit the crown when Queen Anne died.  The choice was between the Catholic heir of the deposed James II (Anne’s father, thrust from power in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 by Anne’s sister Mary and her husband William III of Orange), or the royal family’s nearest Protestant relations in the German House of Hanover (the family which would indeed succeed to the throne upon Anne’s death in 1714).  As Lord Treasurer, Harley managed the opposing factions so well that, to this day, the question of which side he actually supported is still very much up for debate.  Whichever way his views truly tended, however, when Hanoverian George I succeeded Queen Anne in 1714, Harley’s rivals in government managed to implicate Harley as an opponent of the new regime, to the extent that from 1715 to 1717 he was held in the Tower of London, accused of treason.  Despite his ultimate release, his political career was now well and truly over, and it is to this that Pope alludes when he states that ‘In vain to deserts thy retreat is made’ (much like the political wildernesses often referred to today when politicians fall from power).

A true friend, Pope emphasises how Harley has retreated to this desert ‘In vain’, for ‘The Muse’ (presumably an allusion to Pope’s own poetic endeavour) has not deserted Harley but intends to ‘dignify disgrace’ of political exile through the honest admiration of the poem.  For as Pope is quick to emphasise, these dedicatory verses lack the more traditional financial motive; he describes the poem’s artistic ‘Muse’ (personified in classical style as ‘she’) as ‘No hireling she, no prostitute to praise’.  The flattery of this poem is not offered in exchange for money, but as a sincere and grateful return for friendship. 
 

You can find this poem: 

http://www.public-domain-poetry.com/alexander-pope/epistle-to-robert-earl-of-oxford-and-earl-mortimer-28781

(a free copy available online!)

Alexander Pope, The Major Works, ed. Pat Rogers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, repr. 2008)

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199537617.do
(a beautiful collection of Pope’s poetry, and with a helpful amount of explanatory notes; as always, check reputable second hand dealers for cheaper copies, e.g. Ebay, Amazon, and independent bookstores)

About the author:

Alexander Pope was one of the most important poets of the eighteenth century, and one of the best loved and most studied by eighteenth-centuryists today.  Suffering throughout his life from a curvature of the spine, Pope was further disadvantaged by the oppressive anti-Catholic laws of the time, and which forbid any Catholic from living in London or holding public office.  There is no repressing so great a poetic talent, however, and his place in the canon of eighteenth-century poetry is amply deserved.  His major works include comic poetry such as The Dunciad (1728) and The Rape of the Lock (1712-14) (yes, I know, the title does not tend to suggest humour, but the poem is actually about the theft of a lock of hair).  During his life he was most prominently known for his English translations of the Greek poet Homer’s Iliad (pub. 1720) and Odyssey (pub. 1725-6), the first major English versions of these texts to be published.

 

You can find out more about Pope:

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-Pope-English-author

(Encyclopædia Britannica: so much glorious information here, so beautifully and approachably presented! And freely available…)

http://res.oxfordjournals.org/content/66/273/106.full.pdf+html

(An absorbing example of current academic scholarship on Pope, this article is a really interesting look at Pope and his political poetry, together with the broader context in which he was working.  Like most academic writing, it does assume a certain knowledge of eighteenth-century literature, but nothing that can’t be gained with aid of an internet search engine! The author is on twitter @josephhone1 and well worth following!) 

http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=19

(A museum about the Twickenham area, where Pope lived; this site has some interesting biographical info)

The facts and figures for this blogpost was obtained from the following sources:

Pat Rogers, The Alexander Pope Encyclopedia (Westport, Conn.; London: Greenwood Press, 2004)

Anne Somerset, Queen Anne: The politics of passion (London: Harper Collins 2012)

 

 

'January 1795' - Mary Robinson

‘Lofty mansions, warm and spacious;

Courtiers cringing and voracious;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding;
Gallant soldier fighting, bleeding.’

January 1795

Mary Robinson

It’s another less-than-catchy title, I know, but in fact it is a very accurate description of the content of the poem.  English society at the start of 1795: that is exactly what this poem gives you.  Not just the frozen snapshots of architecture and furniture that we glimpse in museums and art galleries today (fascinating and useful though they are).  This is a poem about activity, about living people, inhabiting a diverse and industrious world.  The power of this poem, for me, comes from Robinson’s consistent use of active verbs throughout (the words ending in ‘-ing’).  There is no single story to this poem; rather it is a long description of action, a collage of moving images.

Still more fascinating is the life of Mary Robinson herself.  Actress, poet, society girl and royal mistress, reading through the biography of her life on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a bit like reading a novel.  By the time she wrote this poem in 1795, she was nearing the end of her life (she died in 1800), yet her artistic appreciation for detail, and her capacity for satiric observation, remains acute.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (a major figure in the romanticist movement of poetry, whose work will certainly feature in a later post!!) described her as ‘a woman of undoubted Genius’. 

I enjoyed this poem so much, that I thought I would use it to test a new idea for showcasing featured poems.  It’s great to read poetry on the page, but it’s also important to remember that eighteenth-century poetry in particular was often intended to be read aloud.  As my computer demonstrated a profound reluctance to upload only an audio file, this will run as a video, but there are no visuals.  Just sit back, close your eyes, and step into the eighteenth-century:

 

 

Happy reading! (and, hopefully, listening!)

Feel free to ask questions and leave comments!

NB after initial problems with the video element I have made some technical adjustments, and it should now work fine!  If not, do please let me know!

You can find this poem:

 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174252

(Poetry Foundation: an excellent source of free poetry, and also the text used for my reading)

You can find out more about Mary Robinson:

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780007164592/perdita

(A biography of Robinson’s life by Paula Jane Byrne.  I discovered this myself whilst writing this blogpost, and (having read some of Paula’s other books) I might now have to visit a bookshop… As always, check Amazon/Ebay etc for cheaper options or secondhand copies.  Also, don't let the title confuse you: Perdita was a sort of pseudonym for Robinson throughout her relationship with the prince who would become King George IV)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Robinson_(poet)

Wikipedia!!

http://www.janeausten.co.uk/mary-robinson-a-life-lived-extraordinarily/

(another interesting blog article about the scandalous Mary Robinson)

The Coleridge quotation was taken from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry for Mary Robinson.  I’ve included the link below, but sadly only those who have a registered account with the site can access this information:
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23857?docPos=3

'Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat: Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes' - Thomas Gray

 

‘The hapless nymph with wonder saw:

A whisker first and then a claw,

      With many an ardent wish,

She stretched in vain to reach the prize.

What female heart can gold despise?

     What cat’s averse to fish?’
                                                    (lines 19-24)

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat: Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes
Thomas Gray

1747

In some ways it’s a shocking title: a beloved pet has died in tragic circumstances.  Yet, in typical eighteenth-century style, there is an element of satiric bathos.  It is a poem about death, a tribute to a treasured feline companion; yet it is also an attempt to construct a funny side to an otherwise dismal situation.  Certainly, it would seem to have been an attempt that succeeded: Horace Walpole, the owner of the unfortunate cat, had the first verse of the poem engraved onto a pedestal upon which he displayed the China vase in which his pet had met its end (apparently this is still on display in Walpole’s gothic mansion Strawberry Hill). 

The artist and writer William Blake was commissioned to produce an illustrated edition of Thomas Gray’s poetry; I’ve included one of the illustrations here, because I think it helps to understand the doubling of images in the poem.  What makes it funny is the way that the events are presented with such exaggerated solemnity: the two goldfish are ‘genii of the stream’, while the tragic victim is the ‘hapless nymph’.  The serious aspect of the final moral that ‘all that glisters [is not] gold’ also transforms the incident into a useful life example.  The concept itself is by no means original: Shakespeare includes an almost identical phrase in the play The Merchant of Venice, and, long after Gray’s death, Tolkien incorporated a similar idea into his description of the returning king, Aragorn, in The Lord of the Rings.  Yet the glorious juxtaposition of humour and solemnity that Gray achieves surely makes this the most unique and stunning depiction of this proverb.

Happy reading!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section!

 

Picture: Illustration for Gray's 'Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat,' William Blake, 1798.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume C, The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, edited by James Noggle and Lawrence Lipking, p. C.8. (It should be noted, that the original was much better quality than my low-resolution image)

 

You can find this poem:

 http://www.thomasgray.org.uk/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odfc#panel_poem

A lovely free version of the poem available online!  This site also has a wealth of information surrounding Gray to suit all levels of interest and enthusiasm!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173567

Another free version of the poem available online! if

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume C, The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, edited by James Noggle and Lawrence Lipking, pp. 3050-3051

If, like me, you prefer a good solid book, this is an excellent place to find the poem! 

 

For more information about Thomas Gray:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gray

Wikipedia!! Always a good place to start…

http://www.thomasgray.org.uk/
A stunning resource!! Don’t be put off by all the talk about scholars and academics: this site is for anyone interested in Gray and his poetry!

 http://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/

Strawberry Hill, the gothic-castle-home of Horace Walpole, is now an exceedingly interesting museum: definitely worth a look!

 

'The Vanity of Human Wishes' - Samuel Johnson

‘Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate

O’erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,

Where wavering man, betrayed by venturous Pride

To tread the dreary paths without a guide,

As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude,

Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good.’

(lines 5-10)

The Vanity of Human Wishes
Samuel Johnson
1749

It would not be unfair to say that the language and expressions used in many eighteenth-century poems can seem like something of a ‘clouded maze’.  In their excellent commentary on Johnson’s ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’, James Noggle and Lawrence Lipking note that ‘the difficulty of the poem is also related to its theme, the difficulty of seeing anything clearly on this earth’ (p. 2843).  Yet while it might present a challenge, it remains a hugely poignant and engaging text, full of rich rewards for the persevering reader.   

The most important thing to remember when reading a poem like this is that meaning frequently runs on over several lines (also known as ‘enjambment’, pronounced en-jam-ment).  This bit – ‘betrayed by venturous Pride / To tread the dreary paths without a guide’ – then clicks into focus, as an extra little piece of information about the ‘wavering man’.  The clue here is in the punctuation (something too frequently overlooked by those who read poems aloud, even at graduate level!).  The most inspiring of my university tutors used to encourage us all to read out extracts of the text that we were studying rather than just look at it cold on the page, and poetry in particular benefits from this treatment.  For example, if you read the above quotation leaving a pause for breath at the end of every line the whole thing becomes completely unintelligible.  Instead, try reading it out loud leaving pauses only where the commas fall.  Hopefully, the meaning should now start to pop out a bit more clearly. 

In its broadest term, this is a poem about the futility, not of life, but of the fundamentally human desire for wealth, status, and fame.  Although the poem ultimately advises the reader to ‘leave to Heaven the measure and choice’ of their life’s success and direction, the prioritisation of love and patience remains powerfully relevant to those of any or no religion.  The really important thing, Johnson is arguing, is to avoid the mental destruction of self suffered by the numerous examples he depicts of the covetous and vain. 

Happy reading! 

Feel free to ask questions in comments!

You can find this poem:

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume C, The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, edited by James Noggle and Lawrence Lipking, pp 2843-2851. (This volume is a good investment, as it provides an excellent survey of eighteenth-century literature, as well as containing lots of helpful information about eighteenth-century writers and the history of the period; this is also the edition from which the quotation above was taken). 

Samuel Johnson, The Major Works, edited by Donald Greene (Oxford World’s Classics)

(Absolutely superb series of books, Oxford World’s Classics!! Again, lots of useful extra information and annotation to help even the most inexperienced of readers to access a text)

Be wary of spurious copies of the poem available online or free for e-readers: these may not always have enjoyed the benefit of careful presentation, and as I mentioned above, a comma-pause in the wrong place can really confuse things!  If this is the only way that you can obtain the text however, by all means go for it!

To find out more about Samuel Johnson:

1. Wikipedia! (yes, even academics use this sometimes... but sssh! Don't say I told!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson

2. The Samuel Johnson Society
http://www.samueljohnsonbirthplace.org.uk/society.html
https://johnsonnew.wordpress.com/  (There is a whole list of helpful links on this page, too!)

3. Dr Johnson's House Museum: especially interesting for those who live in, or are visiting, London!
http://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/