William Blake (Oxford Companion)

 

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble:

BLAKE, William (1757-1827), the third son of a London hosier. He did not go to school but was apprenticed to James Basire, engraver to the Society of *Antiquaries, and then became a student at the *Royal Academy. From 1779 he was employed as an engraver by the bookseller J. *Johnson, and in 1780 met *Fuseli and *Flaxman, the latter a follower of *Swedenborg, whose mysticism deeply influenced Blake. In 1782 he married Catherine Boucher, the daughter of a market-gardener; their childless marriage was a lasting communion. Flaxman at this period introduced him to the progressive intellectual circle of the Revd A. S. Mathew and his wife (which included Mrs *Barbauld, H. *More, and Mrs. E. *Montagu), and Mathew and Flaxman financed the publication of Blake's first volume, Poetical Sketches (1783). In 1784, with help from Mrs Mathew, he set up a print shop at 27 Broad Street, and about the same period (although not for publication) wrote the satirical *An Island in the Moon. He engraved and published his *Songs of Innocence in 1789, and also The Book of Thel, both works which manifest the early phases of his highly distinctive mystic vision, and in which he embarks on the evolution of his personal mythology; years later (in *Jerusalem) he was to state, through the character Los, 'I must create a System, or be enslaved by another Man's', words which have been taken by some to apply to his own need to escape from the fetters of 18th-cent. versification, as well as from the materialist philosophy (as he conceived it) of the *Enlightenment, and a Puritanical or repressive interpretation of Christianity. The Book of Thel presents the maiden Thel lamenting transience and mutability by the banks of the river of Adona; she is answered by the lily, the cloud, the worm, and the clod who assure her that 'He, who loves the lowly' cherishes even the meanest; but this relatively conventional wisdom is challenged by a final vision in which Thel visits the house of Clay, sees the couches of the dead, and hears 'a voice of sorrow' breathe a characteristically Blakean protest against hypocrisy and restraint—'Why a tender curb upon the youthful, burning boy? Why a tender little curtain of flesh upon the bed of our desire?'—a message which sends Thel back 'with a shriek' to the vales of Har. The ambiguity of this much-interpreted poem heralds the increasing complexity of his other works which include Tiriel (written 1789, pub. 1874), introducing the theme of the blind tyrannic father, 'the king of rotten wood, and of the bones of death', which reappears in different forms in many poems; *The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (engraved c. 1790-3), his principal prose work, a book of paradoxical aphorisms; and the revolutionary works The French Revolution (1791); America: A Prophecy (1793); and Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), in which he develops his attitude of revolt against authority, combining political fervour (he had met *Paine at Johnson's) and visionary ecstasy; Urizen, the deviser of moral codes (described as 'the stony law' of the Decalogue) and *Orc, the Promethean arch-rebel, emerge as principal characters in a cosmology that some scholars have related to that of *Gnosticism. By this time Blake had already established his poetic range; the long, flowing lines and violent energy of the verse combine with phrases of terse and aphoristic clarity and moments of great lyric tenderness, and he was once more to demonstrate his command of the lyric in Songs of Experience (1794) which includes 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright', 'O Rose thou art sick', and other of his more accessible pieces.

Meanwhile the Blakes had moved to Lambeth in 1790; there he continued to engrave his own works and to write, evolving his mythology further in The Book of *Urizen (1794); *Europe: A Prophecy (1794); The Song of *Los (1795); The Book of Ahania (1795); The Book of Los (1795); and The Four Zoas (originally entitled Vala, written and revised 1797-1804), and also working for the booksellers. In 1800 he moved to Felpham, Sussex, where he lived for three years, working for his friend and patron *Hayley, and working on *Milton (1804-8); in 1803 he was charged at Chichester with high treason for having 'uttered seditious and treasonable expressions, such as "D—n the King, d—n all his subjects . . . "', but was acquitted. In the same year he returned to London, to work on Milton and Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (written and etched, 1804-20). In 1805 he was commissioned by Cromek to produce a set of drawings for R. *Blair's poem The Grave, but Cromek defaulted on the contract, and Blake earned neither the money nor the public esteem he had hoped for, and found his designs engraved and weakened by another hand. This was symptomatic of the disappointment of his later years, when he appears to have relinquished expectations of being widely understood, and quarreled even with some of the circle of friends who supported him. Both his poetry and his art had failed to find a sympathetic audience, and a lifetime of hard work had not brought him riches or even much comfort. His last years were passed in obscurity, although he continued to attract the interest and admiration of younger artists, and a commission in 1821 from the painter John Linnell produced his well-known illustrations for the Book of Job, published in 1826. (It was Linnell who introduced Blake to Samuel *Palmer in 1824.) A later poem, 'The Everlasting Gospel', written about 1818, shows undiminished power and attack; it presents Blake's own version of Jesus, in a manner that recalls the paradoxes of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, attacking the conventional 'Creeping Jesus', gentle, humble, and chaste, and stressing his rebellious nature, his forgiveness of the woman taken in adultery, his reversing of the stony law of Moses, praising 'the Naked Human Form divine', and sexuality as the means whereby 'the Soul Expands its wing', and elevating forgiveness above the 'Moral Virtues'.

At Blake's death, general opinion held that he had been, if gifted, insane. *Wordsworth's verdict, according to C. *Robinson, was that 'The was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott', a view in some measure echoed by *Ruskin, who found his manner 'diseased and wild' but his mind 'great and wise'. It was not until A. *Gilchrist's biography of 1863 (significantly describing Blake as 'Pictor Ignotus') that interest began to grow. This was followed by an appreciation by *Swinburne (1868) and by W. M. *Rossetti's edition of 1874, which added new poems to the canon and established his reputation, at least as a lyric poet; his rediscovered engravings considerably influenced the development of *art nouveau. In 1893 *Yeats, a devoted admirer, produced with E. J. Ellis a three-volume edition, with a memoir and an interpretation of the mythology, and the 20th cent. saw an enormous increase in interest. The bibliographical studies and editions of G. *Keynes, culminating in The Complete Writings of William Blake (1966, 2nd edn), have added greatly to knowledge both of the man and his works, revealing him not only as an apocalyptic visionary but also as a writer of ribald and witty epigrams, a critic of spirit and originality, and an independent thinker who found his own way of resisting the orthodoxies of his age, and whose hostile response to the narrow vision and the materialism (as he conceived it) of his bêtes noires Joshua *Reynolds, *Locke, and Isaac *Newton was far from demented, but in part a prophetic warning of the dangers of a world perceived as mechanism, with man as a  mere cog in an industrial revolution. There have been many interpretative studies, relating his work to traditional Christianity, to the *Neoplatonic and Swedenborgian traditions, to Jungian *archetypes and to *Freudian and *Marxist theory; the Prophetic Books, once dismissed as incoherent, are now claimed by many as works of integrity as well as profundity. Recently, Blake has had a particularly marked influence on the *Beat Generation and the English poets of the *underground movement, hailed by both as a liberator; *Auden earlier acclaimed him ('New Year Letter', 1941) as 'Self-educated Blake . . .' who 'Spoke to Isaiah in the Strand / And heard inside each mortal thing / Its holy emanation sing'.

See also the Blake Books (1977) by G. E. Bentley Jnr, including annotated catalogues of his writings and scholarly books about him; The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. D. V. Erdman (1965, 1988); Blake's Illuminated Books, 6 vols. (1991-5), gen. ed. D. Bindman; and J. Viscomi, Blake and the Idea of the Book (1993), an authoritative account of Blake's graphic process; The William Blake Archive: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/blake (ed. M. Eaves, R. Essick, J. Viscomi). There is a life by Peter *Ackroyd, (1995).

William Cowper (Oxford Companion)

 
From the Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble.


COWPER, William (1731-1800), elder son of the rector of Great Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, whose mother died when he was 6. He was educated at a private school (where he was bullied) and at Westminster, where he was a contemporary of Charles *Churchill and W. *Hastings. He was called to the bar in 1754. Sensitive and hypochondriac by nature as a child, he began to suffer from severe depression, and when called for examination for a disputed clerkship in the House of Lords he broke down completely and attempted suicide; his illness may have been aggravated by the failure of his hope of marrying his cousin Theodora Cowper. From this time he was subject to periods of acute melancholia which took a religious form; he felt himself cast out of God's mercy, and wrote later in his moving autobiographical Memoir (c. 1767, pub. 1816), 'conviction of sin and expectation of instant judgement never left me.' He spent some months in Dr Cotton's Collegium Insanorum at St Albans, and turned increasingly to evangelical Christianity for consolation. In 1765 he became a boarder (in his own words, 'a sort of adopted son') in the home of the Revd Morley Unwin at Huntingdon, and on Morley's death moved with Mary, his widow, to Olney.

There he came under the influence of J. *Newton, the evangelical curate, with whom he wrote Olney Hymns (1669); his contributions include 'God moves in a mysterious way' and 'Oh, for a closer walk with God'. He became engaged to Mrs Unwin, but suffered another period of severe depression and made another suicide attempt; he spent a year with the Newtons before returning to Mrs Unwin's home. A calmer period followed, during which at her suggestion he wrote his satires ('Table Talk', 'The Progress of Error', 'Truth', 'Expostulation', 'Hope', 'Charity', 'Conversation', and 'Retirement') which were published in 1782 with several shorter poems 8including 'Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk; see SELKIRK); in the same year he wrote 'John Gilpin' and in 1783-4 his best-known long poem The Task (1785), both subject suggested by his new friend and neighbour Lady Austen. The volume in which these appeared also contained 'Tirocinium', a vigorous attack on public schools. In 1786 he moved with Mrs Unwin to Weston Underwood, where he wrote various poems published after his death, including the unfinished 'Yardley-Oak' (admired by *Wordsworth), the verses 'On the Loss of the Royal George' ('Toll for the brave . . . '), 'To Mary', and 'The Poplar-Field'. His translation of *Homer, published in 1791, was not successful. From 1791 Mrs Unwin suffered a series of paralytic strokes; she died in1796, leaving Cowper in severe depression from which he never fully recovered.

He wrote 'The Castaway' shortly before his death; like many of his poems it deals with man's isolation and helplessness. Storms and shipwrecks recur in his work as images of the mysterious ways of God, and Cowper's search for a retired and quiet life of simple domestic and rural pleasures gave him little sense of permanent security. Yet his poems and his much admired letters (published posthumously) have been highly valued for their intimate portrait of tranquillity and for their playful and delicate wit. His sympathetic feelings for nature (expressed in the lines from The Task admired by Jane *Austen's Fanny Price, 'Ye fallen avenues! Once more I mourn, / Your fate unmerited') presage *Romanticism, and his use of blank verse links that of James *Thomson with that of *Wordsworth. He was also, like his evangelical friends, a champion of the oppressed, and wrote verses on *Wilberforce and the slave trade. Whether religion was cause or cure of his depression has been much disputed; the sense of guilt and paranoia displayed in his Memoir has much in common with that of Bunyan's *Grace Abounding. A life by his friend W. *Hayley was published 1803-4; see also The Stricken Deer (1929) by David *Cecil and a critical biography by M. Quinlan (1953). Cowper's *Letters and Prose Writings, ed. J. King and C. Ryskamp, appeared in 3 vols, 1979-82.





The Task, a poem in six books by Cowper, published 1785.

When Cowper's friend Lady Austen (whom he met in 1781) suggested to him the sofa in his room as the subject of a poem in blank verse, the poet set about 'the task'. Its six books are entitled 'The Sofa', 'The Time-Piece', 'The Garden', 'The Winter Evening', 'The Winter Morning Walk', and 'The Winter Walk at Noon'. Cowper opens with a mock-heroic account of the evolution of the sofa ('I sing the sofa') and thence digresses to description, reflection, and opinion. The poem stresses the delights of a retired life ('God made the country, and man made the town'), Bk I, 749); describes the poet's own search for peace ('I was a stricken deer, that left the herd', Bk III, 108), and evokes the pleasures of gardening, winter evenings by the fire, etc. The moral passages condemn blood sports, cards, and other diversions; the poet manifests tenderness not only for his pet hare but even for worms and snails.The poem was extremely popular: *Burns found it 'a glorious poem' that expressed 'the Religion of God and Nature', and it helped to create and supply the growing demand for natural description and tender emotion that found a fuller expression in Wordsworth's *Prelude, a poem which contains many echoes of Cowpar.





'The Castaway', a poem by Cowper, written 1799, published 1803. It is based on an incident from *Anson's Voyage Round the World. Cowper depicts with tragic power the suffering of a seaman swept overboard and awaiting death by drowning. Mr Ramsay in V. Woolf's *To the Lighthouse is given to declaiming its last lines: 'We perish'd, each alone: / But I beneath a rougher sea, / And whelm'd in deeper gulphs than he.'

Henry Fielding (Oxford Companion)

 Fielding, Henry (1707-54), the son of a lieutenant (who later became lieutenant general), born at Sharpham Park, the house of his maternal grandfather in Somerset. His mother died when he was 11, and when his father remarried Henry was sent to Eton. There he was happy, enjoyed his studies, and made lifelong friends of *Lyttelton, who was to become a generous future patron, and of *Pitt the elder. At 19 he attempted to elope with a beautiful heiress, but failing in this settled in London, determined to earn his living as a dramatist. Lady M. W. *Montagu, a distant cousin, encouraged him, and in 1728 at Drury Lane his play Love in Several Masques was successfully performed. In the same year he became a student of letters at Leiden, where he remained about 18 months, greatly enlarging his knowledge of classical literature. On his return to London he continued his energetic but precarious life as a dramatist, and between 1729 and 1737 wrote some 25 assorted  dramas, largely in the form of farce and satire, and including two adaptations of Molière, The Mock Doctor and The Miser. In 1730 three of his plays were performed: The Author's Farce, Rape upon Rape, a savage satire on the practices of the law, embodied in Justice Squeezum; and the most successful of all his dramas, *Tom Thumb (which was published in a revised form the following year as The Tragedy of Tragedies, or The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great), one of several extravagant burlesques modelled on Buckingham's *The Rehearsal, of the turgid fashionable tragedies of the day. *Hogarth designed the frontispiece, and a long and close friendship began. Don Quixote, a satire which is in part a tribute to *Cervantes, appeared in 1734. In the same year Fielding married Charlotte Cradock, who became his model for Sophia in *Tom Jones and for the heroine of Amelia, and with whom he enjoyed ten years of great happiness until her death. His improvidence led to long periods of considerable poverty, but he was greatly assisted at various periods of his life by his close and wealthy friend R. *Allen, who became, with Lyttleton, the model for Allworthy in Tom Jones. In 1736 Fielding took over the management of the New Theatre, for the opening of which he wrote the hightly successful satirical comedy Pasquin, which aimed at various religious and political targets, including electioneering abuses. But The Historical Register for 1736 was fiercer political satire than *Walpole's government would tolerate, and the Licensing Act of 1737, introducing censorship by the lord chamberlain, brought Fielding's career in the theatre to an end.

He entered the Middle Temple and began to read for the bar. In 1739-40 he wrote most of the columns of the *Champion, a satirical and anti-Jacobite journal. In 1740 he was called to the bar but his health began to fail and he suffered acutely from gout. In the same year Richardson's Pamela appeared and enjoyed tremendous popular success. In 1741 Fielding expressed his contempt in his pseudonymous parody An Apology for the Life of Mrs *Shamela Andrews. Meanwhile, because of increasing illness, he was unable to pursue his legal career with any consistency. Instead, in 1742, he produced The Adventures of *Joseph Andrews and His Friend, Mr Abraham Adams, for which he received from his publisher £185 11s. In 1743 his old friend *Garrick put on Fielding's The Wedding Day, and in the same year Fielding published three volumes of Miscellanies, which included *A Journey from This World to the Next and a ferocious satire, The Life and Death of *Jonathan Wild the Great. In 1744 he suffered a terrible blow in the death of his wife, and for a year or so he wrote little except a preface to his sister Sarah's novel *David Simple, and some journalism, particularly the True Patriot and the Jacobite's Journal. In 1746 he probably began The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, and in 1747 caused some scandal by marrying his wife's maid and friend Mary Daniel. With the aid of Lyttelton, he was appointed JP for Westminster in 1747 and once again joined battle, now from the inside, with legal corruption and the 'trading justices' who imposed and embezzled fines. In 1749 Tom Jones was enthusiastically received by the general public, if not by *Richardson, *Smollett, Dr *Johnson, and other literary figures. In the same year his legal jurisdiction was extended to the whole county of Middlesex, and he was made chairman of the quarter sessions of Westminster. From his court in Bow Street he continued his struggle against corruption and lawlessness and, with his blind half-brother and fellow magistrate Sir John Fielding, strove to establish new standards of honesty and competence on the bench. He wrote various influential legal enquiries and pamphlets, including a proposal for the abolition of public hangings. In 1751 he published Amelia, which sold the best of all his novels. He returned to journalism in 1752 with the *Covent Garden Journal, and published in 1753 a Provision for the Poor. He organized and saw successfully implemented a plan for breaking up the criminal gangs who were then flourishing in London. But his gout, asthma, and other afflictions were now so far advanced that he had to use crutches, and in 1754, in hope of improvement, he set off with his wife and one of his daughters for Portugal. *The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, published poshumously in 1755, describes in unsparing detail the departure and journey. He had prepared it for the press ('a novel without a Plot') before he died in Lisbon in October.

Fielding is generally agreed to be an innovating master of the highest originality. He himself believed he was 'the founder of a new province of writing,' and Sir Walter *Scott commended him for his 'high notions of the dignity of an art which he may be considered as having founded'. His three acknowledged masters were *Lucian, *Swift, and Cervantes. In breaking away from the epistolary method of his contemporary Richardson, and others, he devised what he described as 'comic epics in prose', which may be characterized as the first modern novels in English, leading straight to the works of *Dickens and *Thackeray. The standard biography is M. C. Battestin, Henry Fielding (1989). The standard edition is the Wesleyan Edition (1967- ) with 11 volumes printed as of 1997.

—oOo—

Tom Thumb,  a Tragedy, a farce by Henry Fielding, performed and published 1730, and published in in a different version in 1731 under the title of The Tragedy of Tragedies, or, The Life and Death of Tom Thum the Great.
    The most successful of Fielding's many plays, this is an exuberant farce in the mock-heroic manner, ridiculing the 'Bombastic Greatness' of the fashionable grandiose tragedies of authors such as Nathaniel *Lee and James *Thomson, and similar in form to Buckingham's *The Rehearsal. It was published with a heavy apparatus of absurd scholarly notes, and a frontispiece by *Hogarth. *Swift declared that he had laughed only twice in his life, once at a Merry-Andrew and once at a performance of Tom Thumb.


A Journey from This World to The Next, the second volume of Miscellanies, by Henry *Fielding, published 1743.
    The author purports to have found an almost indecipherable manuscript, consisting of a series of 'Epistles', which was left in an attic by someone now departed to the West Indies. The soul leaves the body in its lodgings in Cheapside and finds itself, guided by Mercury, in a stage-coach with other departing souls. They pass through the City of Diseases and past the black marble Palace of Death, on to the Wheel of Fortune. At the door of Elysium Minos dictates who shall be permitted to enter; the generous and the honest are favoured, whatever their station, while the cruel and hypocritical are rejected. In the Elysian Fields heroes and writers of antiquity converse animatedly with Shakespeare, *Milton, *Dryden, *Addison, Fielding's own *Tom  Thumb, and many others. The spirit of Julian the Apostate appears and, for the major part of the book, discourses in several guises as slave, Jew, courtier, and statesman. The tale (the last part of which, about Anne Boleyn, may have been by Sarah *Fielding) comes to a somewhat haphazard end with the excuse that the rest of the 'manuscript' has been unfortunately burned. It was edited by C. Rawson, 1973; the best text is found in Miscellanies, by Henry Fielding, ed. Hugh Amory and Bertrand A. Goldgar (vol. ii, 1993).


Covent-Garden Journal, a periodical issued twice a week during 1752 by Henry Fielding containing some of the best work of his journalistic career. Under the name of Sir Alexander Drawcansir, Censor of Great Britain, Fielding attacks political abuses, scandal, hypocrisy, meanness, sexual morality, fashion, and many other targets. It contained an attack on Smollett's *Peregrine Pickle and *Roderick Random, to which that author replied in a slanderous pamphlet, A Faithful Narrative of . . . *Habbakuk Hilding, Justice, Dealer, and Chapman.

A Digression on Vanity

Samuel Richardson (Oxford Companion)

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble.

Richardson, Samuel (1689-1761), the son of a joiner, born near Derby, where his parents lived briefly before returning to London. Little is known of his boyhood, but because of his father's comparative poverty he appears to have received (in his own words) 'only common School-learning'. The tradition that he attended either Merchant Taylors' or *Christ's Hospital cannot be substantiated. As a boy he read widely, told stories to his friends, and by the age of 13 was employed writing letters for young lovers. In 1706 he was apprenticed to a printer (as his father could not afford to enter him to the Church), and in 1715 he was admitted a freeman of the *Stationers' Company. He set up in business on his own in 1721, in which year he married Martha Wilde, the daughter of his former master. All his working life he was extremely industrious, and his business prospered and expanded steadily. Like all printers of his time, he combined printing and publishing, producing books, journals, advertisement posters, and much miscellaneous work. In 1723 he took over the printing of an influential Tory journal, the True Briton, and by 1727 was sufficiently established in his profession to be appointed renter warden of the Stationers' Company. In the 1720s and early 1730s he suffered the early deaths of all his six children, and in 1731 that of his wife. He attributed the nervous disorders of his later life to the shock of these deaths. In 1733 he married Elizabeth Leake, the daughter of a fellow printer, and four of the daughters of their marriage survived. In the same year he published his The Apprentice's Vade Mecum, a book of advice on morals and conduct. In 1738 he purchased in Fulham a weekend 'country' house, which he always referred to as 'North End' , and which later became famous for his readings and literary parties. He published in 1739 his own version, pointedly moral, of Aesop's Fables, and more importantly, he began Pamela.

Inspiration for the novel initially came from a series of 'familiar letters' which fellow printers had encouraged him to write on the problems and concerns of everyday life. While these eventually grew into Pamela, they were also published separately as Letters . . . to and for Particular Friends (1741). Pamela was written in two months, between November 1739 and January 1740, and was published later that year, to very considerable acclaim. The morality and realism of the work were particularly praised, as Richardson had hoped. However, complaints of its impropriety persuaded him to revise his second edition considerably. The work had a great vogue abroad, and was soon adapted for the stage in France. Imitations and forged 'continuations' persuaded Richardson to go on with the story, and volumes iii and iv (Pamela II) were published in 1741. In that year, there appeared a stinging parody called An Apology for the Life of Mrs *Shamela Andrews, which Richardson believed to be by Fielding (as it almost certainly was) and which he never forgave. Fielding's *Joseph Andrews, which begins as a parody of Pamela, was published in 1742 but did not affect the popularity of Pamela II.

Richardson's business continued to prosper, although his health was beginning to cause him great concern, and he extended his publications in religion, history, biography, and literature. In 1733 he had begun printing for the House of Commons and in 1742 he secured the lucrative post of printer of its journals. His circle of friends had by now vastly increased, and included many admiring young ladies, known as his 'songbirds' or 'honorary daughters'.

During the writing of *Clarissa, which was probably begun in 1744, he endlessly asked his friends for comment and advice, and read passages aloud to them in his 'grotto' (or summer house) at Norht End. The first two volumes of Clarissa appeared in 1747 and were very favourably received. After heavy revision, and determined efforts to prune, a further five volumes appeared in 1748. Correspondents and the circle of friends continued to grow and now included the *Bluestocking ladies Mrs *Delany, Mrs *Carter, and later Mrs *Chapone. Clarissa was an undoubted success but there were complaints about both its length and its indecency, and it was not reprinted as often as Pamela. However, it also became very popular abroad and was translated into French, Dutch, and German.

Urged by friends, Richardson began thinking, in about 1750, of the portrayal of a 'Good Man'. He asked for the views of his extensive acquaintance and began experimenting with the 'letters' of Harriet, who was to become one of the heroines of his next novels. His illnesses and general malaise, which appear to have included a form of Parkinson's disease, increased steadily but he persevered strenuously both with his business and his writing. His authors in the 1750s included Charlotte *Lennox, Sarah *Fielding, Edward *Young and George *Lyttelton. He had now become friendly with Dr *Johnson, to whose *Rambler he contributed in 1750 and whom he helped with money in 1751. In 1752 Johnson (together with many of Richardson's other friends) read the draft of Sir Charles *Grandison, and Richardson printed the fourth volume of the Rambler. In 1753 he travelled to Bath and Cheltenham, which was as far as he had ever gone, and in 1753-4 he published the seven volumes of Sir Charles Grandison. The book sold well and rapidly became fashionable, but was assailed in various critical pamphlets for length, tedium, and doubtful morality.

In 1754-5 Richardson was master of the Stationers' Company. He published in 1755 A Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments . . . in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison, a book which he considered contained the pith of all his work.  In the same year Dr Johnson published the Dictionary, which contained 97 citations from Clarissa. In 1756  Richardson was asked by *Blackstone for adevice on the reform of the *Oxford University Press. Towards the end of his life Richarson wrote a few 'letters' to, from, and about Mrs Beaumont, a minor character from Sir Charles Grandison, who had been someone of mysterious importance in his early life. He continued to revise his novels heavily, and remained active in his business until his death.

Richarson is generally agreed to be one of the chief founders of the modern novel. All his novels were *epistolary, a form he took from earlier works in English and French, which he appreciated for its immediacy ('writing to the moment' as he called it), and which he reaised to a level not attained by any of his predecessors. The 'letters', of which his novels consist, contain many long transcriptions of conversations, and the kinship with drama seems very strong. He was acutely aware of the problems of prolixity ('Length, is my principle Disgust') and worked hard to prune his original drafts, but his interest in minute analysis led inevitably to an expansive style.

A selection of his letters (6 vols, 1804) was edited by Mrs *Barbauld: see also Selected Letters of Samuel Richardson, ed. J. Carroll (1964). There is a life by T. C. D. Eaves and B. D. Kimpel (1971); see also M. Kinkead-Weekes, Samuel Richardson, Dramatic Novelist (1973); M. A. Doody, A Natural Passion (1974). 






Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, a novel by Samuel *Richardson, published 1740-1.

The first of Richardson's three novels, Pamela consists, like them, entirely of letters and journals, of which Richardson presents himself as the 'editor'. He believed he had hit upon 'a new species of writing' but he was not the inventor of the *epistolary novel, several of which already existed in English and French. He did however raise the form to a level hitherto unknown, and transformed it to display his own particular skills.

There are six correspondents in Pamela, most with their own particular style and point of view, but Pamela herself provides most of the letters and journals, with the 'her', Mr B., having only two. Pamela Andrews is a hansome, intelligent girl of 15 when her kind employer Lady B. dies. Penniless and without protection, Pamela is pursued by Mr B., Lady B.'s son, but she repulses him and remains determined to retain her chastity and unsullied conscience. Letters reveal Mr B.'s cruel dominance and pride, but also Pamela's half-acknowledged tenderness for him, as well as her vanity, prudence, and calculation. Angrily Mr B. separates her from her friends, Mrs Jervis the housekeeper and Mr Longman the steward, and dispatches her to B— Hall, his remote house in Lincolnshire, where she is imprisoned, guarded, and threatened by the cruel Mrs. Jewkes.  Only the chaplain, Mr Williams, is her friend, but he is powerless to help. For 40 days, allowed no visits or correspondence, she keeps a detailed journal, analysing her situation and her feelings, and at the same time revealing her faults of prudence and pride. She despairs, and begins to think of suicide. Mr B., supposing her spirit must now be broken, arrives at B— Hall, and, thinking himself generous, offers to make her his mistress and keep her in style. She refuses indignantly, and he later attempts to rape her and then to arrange a mock-marriage. Two scenes by the pond mark a turning point in their relationship. Both begin to be aware of their faults, and of the genuine nature of their affection. However, Pamela again retreats and refuses his proposal of marriage. She is sent away from B— Hall, but a message gives her a last chance. Overcoming her pride and caution, she decides to trust him, accepts his offer, and they are married. In the remaining third of the book Pamela's goodness wins over even Lady Davers, Mr B.'s supercilious sister, and becomes a model of virtue to her circle of admiring friends; but (as in Pamela, Part II) the author's creative drive becomes overwhelmed by his urge to moralize.

The book was highly successful and fashionable, and further editions were soon called for. Richardson felt obliged to continue his story, not only because of the success of Pamela but because of the number of forged continuations that began to appear. Pamela, Part II appeared in 1741. Here Pamela is exhibited, through various small and separate instances, as the perfect wife, patiently leading her profligate husband to reform; a mother who adores (and breastfeeds) her children; and a friend who is at the disposal of all, and who brings about the penitence of the wicked. Much space is given over to discussion of moral, domestic, and general subjects. 

*Shamela (1741, almost certainly by *Fielding) vigorously mocked what the author regarded as the hypocritical morality of Pamela; and Fielding's *Joseph Andrews, which begins as a parody of Pamela, appeared in 1742.




Clarissa: or The History of a Young Lady, an *epistolary novel by Samuel *Richardson, published 1748 (for 1747)-1749, in eight volumes. About one-third of the work (which is in all over a million words) consists of the letters of Clarissa and Lovelace, mainly written to Anna Howe and John Belford respectively, but there are over 20 correspondents in all, displaying many points of view and variations in style. 


Lovelace, a handsome, dashing rake, is courting Arabella Harlowe, the elder sister of Clarissa. The Harlowes are an acquisitive, ambitious, 'narrow-souled' family, and when Lovelace transfers his affections to Clarissa they decide he is not good enough and that Clarissa must marry the wealthy but ugly Solmes, whom she detests. When she refuses she is locked up and humiliated. Lovelace, cleverly representing himself as her deliverer, plays on her fears, convinces her that he is forwarding her reconciliation with her family, and persuades her to escape under his protection to London. There he establishes her in a superior brothel, which she at first supposes to be respectable lodgings. She unwaveringly resists his advances and he, enraged by her intransigence, is also attracted by it and finds his love and respect for her increase. Her emotions are likewise deeply confused; she is fascinated by his charm and wit, but distrusts him and refuses his eventual proposals of marriage. In his growing insistence, Lovelace overreaches himself, interfering with her letters, deceiving her over a supposed emissary from her family, violently assalulting her, and cunningly ensnaring her after he escapes. As she unhappily but stubbornly resists, he becomes more obsessive in his determination to conquer, and makes an attempt to rape her. He claims to believe that her resistance is no more than prudery and that, once subdued, she will turn to him: 'Is not this  the hour of trial—And in her, of the trial of the virtue of her whole Sex, so long premeditated, so long threatened? —Whether her frost be frost indeed? Whether her virtue be principle?' (vol. V, Letter 31). To Clarissa chastity represents identity, and the climax of her tragedy comes when Lovelace, abetted by the women of the house, drugs and rapes her, an event he reports in one of the shortest letters of the work: 'And now, Belford, I can go no farther. The affair is over. Clarissa lives.' (Vol. V, Letter 32). 


Slowly Clarissa loses grip of her reason, and Lovelace realizes that he has lost the very dominance he had hoped to establish. Cut off from family, friends, and even correspondence, Clarissa eventually escapes, only to find herself trapped in a debtor's prison. She is rescued by Belford, who looks after her with affectionate care. Lovelace is overwhelmed by remorse. Clarissa recovers her sanity, but almost ceases to write, and her long decline and Christian preparation for death are reported largely in letters by Belford. After her death her cousin, Colonel Morden, kills Lovelace in a duel. Because of its great length, the novel has been more admired than read, but it has always been held in high critical esteem; the characters of the protagonists are developed with great sutblety, and the irresolvable nature of their conflict takes on an emblematic and tragic quality unique for its author and its period.

Bibliografía sobre Samuel Richardson

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Pope, Alexander

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble. Paragraph separations added:

Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), the son of a Roman Catholic linen draper of London. His health was ruined and his growth stunted by a severe illness at the age of 12 (probably Pott's disease, a tubercular affection of the spine). He lived with his parents at Binfield in Windsor Forest and was largely self-educated. 

He showed his precocious metrical skill in his 'Pastorals' written, according to himself, when he was 16, and published in *Tonson's Miscellany (vol. vi) in 1709. (For Pope's quarrel with Ambrose Philips on this subject see under PHILIPS, A.). He became intimate with *Wycherley, who introduced him to London life. His *Essay on Criticism (1711) made him known to Addison's circle, and his *'Messiah' was published in the Spectator in 1712. *The Rape of the Lock appeared in Lintot's Miscellanies in the same year and was republished, enlarged, in 1714. His Ode for Music on St Cecilia's Day (1713), one of his rare attempts at lyric, shows that his gifts did not lie in this direction. 

In 1713 he also published *Windsor Forest, which appealed to the Tories by its references to the Peace of Utrecht, and won him the friendship of *Swift. He drifted away from Addison's 'little senate' and became a member of the *Scriblerus Club, an association that included Swift, *Gay, *Arbuthnot, and others. He issued in 1715 the first volume of his translation in heroic couplets of Homer's *Iliad. This work, completed in 1720, is more *Augustan than Homeric in spirit and diction, but has nevertheless been much admired. *Coleridge thought it an 'astonishing product of matchless talent and ingenuity'. It was supplemented in 1725-6 by a translation of the *Odyssey, in which he was assisted by William Broome and Elijah Fenton. The two translations brought him financial independence. He moved in 1718 with his mother to Twickenham, where he spent the rest of his life, devoting much time to his garden and grotto; he was keenly interested in *landscape gardening and committed to the principle 'Consult the Genius of the Place in all'.

In 1717 had appeared a collection of his works containing two poems dealing, alone among his works, with the passion of love. They are 'Verses to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady', an elegy on a fictitious lady who had killed herself through hopeless love, and *'Eloisa to Abelard', in which Eloisa describes her inner conflicts after the loss of her lover. About this time he became strongly attached to Martha *Blount, with whom his friendship continued throughout his life, and to Lady Mary Wortley *Montagu, whom in later years he assailed with bitterness. Lady Mary left for Turkey in July 1716 and Pope sent her 'Eloisa to Abelard' with a letter suggesting that he was passionately grieved by her absence.

Pope assisted Gray in writing the comedy Three Hours after Marriage (1717) but made no other attempt at drama. In 1723, four years after Addison's death, appeared (in a miscellany called Cytherea) Pope's portrait of *Atticus, a satire on Addison written in 1715. An extended version appeared as 'A Fragment of a Satire' in a 1727 volume of Miscellanies (by Pope, Swift, Arbuthot, and Gay)., and took its final form in An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (1735). 

In the same Miscellanies volume Pope published his prose treatise *Peri Bathous, or The Art of Sinking in Poetry, ridiculing among others Ambrose Philips, *Theobald, and John *Dennis. In 1725 Pope published an edition of Shakespeare, the errors in which were pointed out in a pamphlet by Theobald, Shakespeare Restored (1726). This led to Pope's selection of Theobald as hero of his *Dunciad, a satire on Dullness in three books, on which he had been at work for some time: the first volume appeared anonymously in 1728. Swift, who spent some months with Pope in Twickenham in 1726, provided much encouragement for this work, of which a further enlarged edition was published in 1729. An additional book, The New Dunciad, was published in 1742, prompted this time, it appears, by *Warburton. The complete Dunciad in four books, in which Colley Cibber replaces Theobald as hero, appeared in 1743.

Influenced in part by the philosophy of his friend *Bolingbroke, Pope published a series of moral and philosophical poems, *Essay on Man (1733-34), consisting of four Epistles; and *Moral Essays (1731-5), four in number: Of the Knowledge and Characters of Men, Of the Characters of Women, and two on the subject Of the Use of Riches. A fifth epistle was added, addressed to Addison, occasioned by his dialogue on medals. This was originally written in Addison's lifetime, c. 1716. In 1733 Pope published the first of his miscellaneous satires, Imitations of Horace, entitled 'Satire I', a paraphrase of the first satire of the second book of Horace, in the form of a dialogue between the poet and William Fortescue, the lawyer. In it Pope defends himself against the charge of Malignity, and professes to be inspired only by love of virtue. He inserts, however, a gross attack on his former friend Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as 'Sappho'. He followed this up with his Imitations of Horace's Satires 2.2 and 1.2 ('Sober Advice from Horace'), in 1734, and of Epistles 1.6; 2.2; 2.1; and 1.1, in 1737.  Horace's Epistle 1.7 and the latter part of Satire 2.6 'imitated in the manner of Dr Swift', appeared in 1738. The year 1735 saw the appearance of the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, the prologue to the above Satires, one of Pope's most brilliant pieces of irony and invective, mingled with autobiography. It contains the famous portraits of Addison (ll. 193-214) and Lord *Hervey, and lashes his minor critics, Dennis, Cibber, *Curll, Theobald, etc. In 1738 appeared One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight, two satirical dialogues. These satires, and the 'Satires (2 and 4) of Dr Donne Versified' (1735), with the New Dunciad, closed his literary career.

He was partly occupied during his later years with the publication of his earlier correspondence, which he edited and amended in such a manner as to misrepresent the literary history of the time. He also employed discreditable artifices to make it appear that it was published against his wish. Thus he procured the publication by Curll of his 'Literary Correspondence' in 1735, and then endeavored to disavow him.

With the growth of *Romanticism Pope's poetry was increasingly seen as artificial; Coleridge commented that Pope's thoughts were 'translated into the language of poetry'. *Hazlitt called him 'the poet not of nature but of art', and W. L. Bowles compared his work to 'a game of cards'; *Byron, however, was highly laudatory: 'Pope's pure strain / Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain.' Matthew *Arnold's famous comment, 'Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry, they are classics of our prose' (Essays in Criticism, 1880), summed up much 19th-cent. opinion, and it was not until *Leavis and *Empson that a serious attempt was made to rediscover Pope's richness, variety, and complexity.

Minor works that deserve mention are:

Verse: the Epistles 'To a Young Lady (Miss Blount) with the Works of Voiture' (1712), to the same 'On her Leaving the town after the Coronation' (1717); 'To Mr Jervas with Dryden's Translation of Fresony's Art of Painting' (1716) and 'To Robert, Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer' (1721); 'Vertumnus and Pomona' , 'Sappho to Phaon', and 'The Fable of Dryope', translations from *Ovid (1712); *'January and May', 'The Wife of Bath, her Prologue', and The Temple of Fame, from *Chaucer (1709, 1714, 1715).

Prose: The Narrative of Dr Robert Norris (1713), a satirical attack on Dennis; A Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison, on . . . Mr Edmund Curll (1716), an attack on Curll (to whom he had secretly administered an emetic).

The standard edn. of Pope's poetry is the Twickenham Edition, under the general editorship of J. Butt 811 vols. plus Index, 1940-69); see also G. Sherburn, The Early Career of Alexander Pope (1949); P.
*Quennell, Alexander Pope: The Education of a Genius (1968), M. Mack, The Garden and the City (1969) and Alexander Pope: A Life (1985); Morris R. Brownell, Alexander Pope and the Arts of Georgian England (1978).

The Rape of the Lock, a poem by *Pope, in two cantos, published in Linto's Miscellany 172 as "The Rape of the Locke"; subsequently enlarged to five cantos and thus published 1714.

When Lord Petre forcibly cut off a lock of Miss Arabella Fermor's hair, the incident gave rise to a quarrel between the families. With the idea of allaying this, Pope treated the subject in a playful *mock-heroic poem, on the model of *Boileau's Le Lutrin. He presents Belinda at her toilet, a game of ombre, the snipping of the lock while Belinda sips her coffee, the wrath of Belinda and her demand that the lock be restored, the final wafting of the lock, as a new star, to adorn the skies. The poem was published in its original form with Miss Fermor's permission. Pope then expanded the sketch by introducing the machinery of sylphs and gnomes, adapted from a light erotic French work, Le Comte de Gabalis, a series of five discourses by the Abbé de Montfaucon de Villars, which appeared in English in 1680; in his dedication he credits both Gabalis and the *Rosicrucians. (See also PARACELSUS). One of Pope's most brilliant performances, it has also been one of his most popular: Dr.*Johnson called it 'the most attractive of all ludicrous compositions', in which 'New things are made familiar and familiar things are made new'.



Essay on Man, a philosophical poem in heroic couplets by *Pope, published 1733-34, part of a larger poem projected but not completed.

It consists of four epistles addressed to *Bolingbroke, and perhaps to some extent inspired by his fragmentary philosophical writings. Its objective is to vindicate the ways of God to man; to prove that the scheme of the universe is the best of all possible schemes, in spite of appearances of evil, and that our failure to see the perfection of the whole is due to our limited vision. 'Partial Ill' is 'universal Good', and 'self-love and social' are directed to the same end; 'All are but parts of one stupenduous whole / Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.' The epistles deal with man's relations to the universe, to himself as an individual, to society, and to happiness. D. *Stewart thought the Essay 'the noblest specimen of philosophical poetry our language affords' (Active and Moral Powers, 1828), but Dr *Johnson commented, 'Never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment so happily disguised.' Pope's attempts to prove that 'Whatever is, is right' anticipate the efforts of Pangloss in *Voltaire's Candide.



 

Análisis del discurso: Gramáticas, contextos, conversaciones, estilos

Jonathan Swift (Oxford Companion)

 

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble.


SWIFT, Jonathan (1667-1745), born in Dublin after his father's death. He was son of Jonathan Swift by Abigail (Erick) of Leicester, and grandson of Thomas Swift, the well-known Royalist vicar of Goodrich, descended from a Yorkshire family. He was a cousin of *Dryden. He was educated with *Congreve, at Kilkenny Grammar School, then at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was censured for offences against discipline, obtaining his degree only by 'special grace'. He was admitted (1689) to the household of Sir William *Temple, and there acted as secretary. He was sent by Temple to William III to convince him of the necessity of triennial parliaments, but his mission was not successful. He wrote Pindaric *odes, one of which, printed in the Athenian Mercury (1692) provoked, according to Dr *Johnson, Dryden's remark, 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.' Chafing at his position of dependence, and indignant at Temple's delay in getting him preferment, he returned to Ireland, was ordained (1694), and received the small prebend of Kilroot. He returned to Temple at Moor Park in 1696, where he edited Temple's correspondence, and in 1697 wrote *The Battle of the Books, which was published in 1704 together with *A Tale of a Tub, his celebrated satire on 'corruptions in religion and learning.' At Moor Park he first met Esther Johnson ('Stella'), the daughter of a servant or companion of Temple's sister. On the death of Temple in 1699, Swift went again to Ireland, where he was given a prebend in St Patrick's, Dublin, and the living of Laracor. He wrote his Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome, with reference to the impeachment of the Whig lords, in 1701. In the course of numerous visits to London he became acquainted with *Addison, *Steele, Congreve, and Halifax. He was entrusted in 1707 with a mission to obtain the grant of Queen Anne's Bounty for Ireland, and in 1708 began a series of pamphlets on church questions with his ironical Argument against Abolishing Christianity, followed in the same year by his Letter Concerning the Sacramental Test, an attack on the Irish Presbyterians which injured him with the Whigs. Amid these serious occupations, he diverted himself with the series of squibs upon the astrologer John Partridge (1708-9, see under BICKERSTAFF), which have become famous, and his 'Description of a City Shower' and 'Description of the Morning', poems depicting scenes of London life, which were published in the *Tatler (1709). Disgusted at the Whig alliance with Dissent, he went over to the Tories in 1710, joined the Brothers' Club, attacked the Whig ministers in the *Examiner, which he edited, and in 1711 wrote The Conduct of the Allies and Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty, pamphlets written to dispose the mind of the nation to peace. He became dean of St Patrick's in 1713. He had already begun his Journal to Stella, a series of intimate letters (1710-13) to Esther Johnson and her companion Rebecca Dingley, who had moved to Ireland in 1700/1; it is written partly in baby language, and gives a vivid account of Swift's daily life in London where he was in close touch with Tory ministers. Swift's relations with Estella remain obscure; they were intimate and affectionate, and some form of marriage may have taken place. Another woman, Esther Vanhomrigh (pro. "Vannumery") , entered his life in 1708; his poem *Cadenus and Vanessa suggests that she fell deeply in love with him ('She wished her Tutor were her lover') and that he gave her some encouragement. She is said to have died of shock in 1723 after his final rupture with her, inspired by her jealousy of Stella. Stella died in 1728.

Swift wrote various political pamphlets, notably The Importance of the Guardian Considered (1713) and The Public Spirit of the Whigs (1714), in reply to Steele's Crisis; and about the time of the queen's death in 1714 and the fall of the Tory ministry, several papers (published much later) in defence of the latter. In the same year he joined *Pope, *Arbuthnot, *Gay, and others in the celebrated *Scriblerus Club. He returned to Ireland in Aug. 1714 and occupied himself with Irish affairs, being led by his resentment of the policy of the Whigs to acquire a sense of their unfair treatment of Ireland. By his famous *Drapier's Letters (1724) he prevented the introduction of 'Wood's Half Pence' into Ireland. He came to England in 1726, visited Pope and Gay, and dined with Sir Robert *Walpole, to whom he addressed a letter of remonstrance on Irish affairs with no result. He published *Gulliver's Travels in the same year, and paid a last visit to England in 1727, when the death of George I created for a moment hopes of dislodging Walpole. He wrote some of his most famous tracts and characteristic poems during his last years in Ireland, The Grand Question Debated (1729); Verses on the Death of Dr Swift (1731, pub. 1739), in which with mingled pathos and humour he reviews his life and work; A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious *Conversation (1738); and the ironical Directions to Servants (written about 1731 and published after his death). He kept up his correspondence with *Bolingbroke, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, attracted to himself a small circle of friends, and was adored by the people. He spent a third of his income on charities, and saved another third to found St. Patrick's Hospital for Imbeciles (opened 1757). The symptoms of the illness from which he suffered for most of his life (now thought to have been Ménière's disease) became very marked in his last years, and his faculties decayed to such a degree that many considered him insane, though modern biographical opinion rejects this view. He was buried by the side of Stella, in St. Patrick's, Dublin, his own famous epitaph 'ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit' (where fierce indignation cannot further tear apart the heart) being inscribed into his tomb. Nearly all his works were published anonymously, and for only one, Gulliver's Travels, did he receive any payment (£200). Dr Johnson, *Macaulay, and *Thackeray, among many other writers, were alienated by his ferocity and coarseness, and his works tended to be undervalued in the later 18th-19th centuries. The 20th century has seen a revival of biographical and critical interest, stressing on the whole Swift's sanity, vigour, and satirical inventiveness rather than his alleged misanthropy.

 

 

 

 

 

(ADVANCED LEVEL:)

Swift published a great number of works. Besides the more important, referred to above, mention may be made of the following:

Political writings: The Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod (1710), an attack on Godolphin; The W—ds—r Prophecy (1711), attacking the duchess of Somerset; A Short Character of T[homas] E[arl] of W[harton] (1711)); The Fable of Midas (1711); Some Advice Humbly Offered to the Members of the October club, the extreme Tories (1712); Some Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs (1714); Traulus (1730), attacking Lord Allen; and the History of the Four Last Years of the Queen [Anne] (1758), which contains his famous character of *Harley.

Pamphlets relating to Ireland: A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720); The Swearer's-Bank (1720), The Story of the Injured Lady (?1746); A Short View of the State of Ireland (1728); *A Modest Proposal (1729); An Examination of Certain Abuses, Corruptions and Enormities in the City of Dublin (1732); The Legion Club (the Irish Parliament, 1736).

Pamphlets on church questions. The Sentiments of a Church of England Man with Respect to Religion and Government (1708); A Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners (1709); A Preface to the B—p of S—r—m's Introduction (1713), an attack on Bishop *Burnet; Mr C—ns's Discourse on Free Thinking, a satire on Anthony *Collins (1713); A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Entered into Holy Orders (1721), Swift's Sermons (of which four were published in 1744), are marked by the author's usual characteristics of vigour and common sense.

Miscellaneous verses and other writings. 'Mrs Frances Harris's petition', a servant who has lost her purse, an amusing burlesque (1709); *Baucis and Philemon (1709); 'On Mrs Biddy Floyd' (1709); 'A Meditation upon a Broom-Stick' (1710); A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712); Imitations of the Seventh Epistle of the First Book of *Horace and the First Ode of the Second Book of Horace (1738); A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet (1721); a 'Letter to a Very Young Lady on Her Marriage' (1727); the 'Journal of a Dublin Lady' (1729); The Lady's Dressing-Room (1732); The Beasts Confession to the Priest (1732), a satire on 'the universal folly of mankind in mistaking their talents'; A Serious and Useful Scheme to Make an Hospital for Incurables—whether the incurable disease were knavery, folly, lying, or, infidelity (1733); On Poetry, a Rhapsody (1733), satirical advice to a poet; A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed; and Strephon and Chloe (1734).

The Prose Works have been edited by Herbert Davis (16 vols, 1939-74); Journal to Stella by H. Williams (2 vols, 1948); Poems by H. Williams (1937); Correspondence by H. Williams (5 vols, 1963-5); Complete Poems ed. P. Rogers (Penguin, 1983), with an important commentary. See also Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works and the Age (3 vols, 1962-83) and a useful short study by R. Quintana, Swift: An Introduction (1955).

Universal Criticism: Arbuthnot and Swift

Aphra Behn (Oxford Companion)

 

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble:

BEHN, Mrs Afra or Aphra, probably née Johnson (1650-89). She was born in Kent and visited Surinam, then a British colony, in 1663 with members of her family. On her return to England the following year she married Behn, a city merchant probably of Dutch descent, who died within two years. She was employed  in 1666 by Charles II as a spy in Antwerp in the Dutch war. Her first play, The Forced Marriage (1670), was followed by some 14 others, including her most popular, The Rover (in two parts, 1677-81), dealing with the adventures in Naples and Madrid of a band of English Cavaliers during the exile of Charles II; its hero, the libertine Willmore, was said to be based on *Rochester, though another model may have been her lover, John Hoyle, lawyer and son of the regicide Thomas Hoyle. The City Heiress (1682) is a characteristic satiric comedy of London life and, like Otway's *Venice Preserv'd, contains a caricature of *Shaftesbury. The Lucky Chance (1686) explores one of her favourite themes, the ill consequences of arranged and ill matched marriages. Her friends included *Buckingham, *Etherege, *Dryden and *Otway, and she was a staunch defender of the Stuart cause. She also wrote poems and novels and edited a Miscellany (1685). Her best-remembered work is *Oroonoko, or The History of the Royal Slave, based on her visit to Surinam. Perhaps the earliest English philosophical novel, it deplores the slave trade and Christian hypocrisy, holding up for admiration the nobility and honour of its African hero. Despite her success she had even in her time to contend with accusations of plagiarism and lewdness, attracted in her view by her sex, and as late as 1905, in an edition of her novels, Ernest Baker described her work as 'false, lurid and depraved'. V. Woolf in *A Room of One's Own (1928) acclaims her as the first English woman to earn her living byh writing, 'with all the plebeian virtues of humour, vitality and courage', and comments that she was buried 'scandalously but rather appropriately' in Westminster Abbey. See M. *Duffy, The Passionate Shepherdess (1977). (See RESTORATION.)



Oroonoko, or The History of the Royal Slave, a novel by Afra Behn, published c.1688, adapted for the stage by *Southerne,  1695.

Oroonoko, grandson and heir of an African king, loves and wins Imoinda, daughter of the king's general. The king, who also loves her, is enraged and orders her to be sold as a slave. Oroonoko himself is trapped by the captain of an English slave-trading ship and carried off to Surinam, then an English colony, where he is reunited with Imoinda and renamed Caesar by his owners. He rouses his fellow slaves to revolt, is deceived into surrender by deputy governor Byam (a historical figure), and brutally whipped. Oroonoko, determined on revenge but not hoping for victory, kills Imoinda, who dies willingly. He is discovered by her dead body and cruelly executed.

The novel is remarkable as an early protest against the slave trade, and as a description of primitive people in 'the first state of innocence, before men knew how to sin': the author comments on the superior simplicity and morality of both African slaves and the indigenous Indians, whose Christian oppressors are shown as treacherous and hypocritical. Afra Behn's memories of her own visit to Surinam in 1663 provide a vivid background, and much of the story is narrated as by a personal witness. Southerne's tragedy follows the broad lines in the novel, but the deputy governor's passion for Imoinda is made a chief motif of action, Imoinda herself is presented as the daughter of a white European, and Oroonoko dies by his own hand, alterations which decrease the violence of the story and increase its intended pathos.

Orinoco de Aphra Behn

The Plot of Volpone

 

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature:

Volpone, or The Fox, a comedy by Jonson, performed by the King's Men in 1605-6, printed 1607. 

Volpone, a rich Venetian without children, feigns that he is dying, in order to draw gifts from his would-be heirs. Mosca, his parasite and confederate, persuades each of these in turn that he is to be the heir, and thus extracts costly presents from them. One of them, Corvino, even attempts to sacrifice his wife to Volpone in hope of the inheritance. Finally Volpone overreaches himself. To enjoy the discomfiture of the vultures who are awaiting his death, he makes over his property by will to Mosca and pretends to be dead. Mosca takes advantage of the situation to blackmail Volpone, but rather than be thus defeated Volpone chooses to reveal all to the authorities. They direct that Volpone shall be cast in irons until he is as infirm as he pretended to be, Mosca whipped and confined to the galleys, Corvino made parade in ass's ears, and his wife be returned to her family with a trebled dowry. A secondary plot involves Sir Politic Would-be, an English traveller who has absurd schemes for improving trade and curing diseases, and his Lady, a loquacious, hectoring pedant. Sir Politic is chastened when Peregrine, a wiser English traveller, pretends to have him arrested for treason. The names of the principal characters, Volpone (the fox), Mosca (the fly), Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio (the crow), Corvino (the raven), indicate their roles and natures.

—oOo—

This plot is summarised by Jonson himself in an acrostic poem at the start of the play:

                 The argument

V olpone, childless, rich, feigns sick, despairs,
O ffers his state to hopes of several heirs,
L ies languishing: his parasite receives
P resents of all, assures, deludes; then weaves
O ther cross plots, which ope themselves, are told.
N ewe tricks for safety are sought; they thrive: when bold,
E ach tempts the other again, and all are sold.

—oOo—

 

 

A production of Volpone in Spanish (nivel avanzado)

And some clips from a British production, e.g. the epilogue.

Ben Jonson (avanzado)

 

George Herbert (Oxford Companion)

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble:

Herbert, George (1593-1633), fifth son of Sir Richard and Magdalen Herbert and younger brother of Lord *Herbert of Cherbury, born in Montgomery into a prominent family. His father died when he was 3, and in 1608 his mother, the patron of Donne, remarried Sir John Danvers, who was 20 years her junior. Educated at Westminster School where he was named king's scholar, and Trinity College, Cambridge, George published his first poems (two sets of memorial verses in Latin) in a volume mourning Prince Henry's death in 1612. But he had already, according to his earliest biographer, I. *Walton, sent his mother at the start of 1610 a New Year's letter dedicating his poetic powers to God and enclosing two sonnets ('My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee?' and 'Sure, Lord, there is enough in thee to dry'). In 1616 he was elected a major fellow of Trinity, and in 1618 appointed reader in rhetoric. In 1620 he became public orator at the university (holding this distinguished position until his resignation in 1627). He seems at this period to have been rather pushing, keen on making the acquaintance of the great and conscious of his distinction of birth. F. *Bacon and Donne were among his friends, and the public oratorship introduced him to men of influence at court. Although he was obliged, by the terms of his fellowship, to take orders within seven years, he seems to have gravitated towards a secular career, leaving his university duties to be performed by proxies. In 1624, and again in 1625, he represented Montgomery in Parliament. This fairly brief experience of worldly ambition seems, however, to have disillusioned him. He was ordained deacon, probably before the end of 1624, and installed in 1626 as a canon of Lincoln Cathedral and prebendary of Leighton Bromswold in Huntingdonshire, near *Little Gidding, where *Ferrar, whom Herbert had known at Cambridge, had recently established a religious community. Once installed, Herbert set about restoring the ruined church at Leighton. His mother died in 1627, and his Memoriae Matris Sacrum waas published in the volume containing Donne's commemoration sermon. In March 1629 Herbert married his stepfather's cousin, Jane Danvers, and they adopted two orphaned nieces of Herbert's. He became rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury, in April 1630, being ordained priest the following September. In his short priesthood he gained a reputation for humility, energy, and charity. He was also a keen musician, and would go twice a week to hear the singing in Salisbury Cathedral which was, he said, 'Heaven upon earth'. He died of consumption shortly before his 40th birthday. When he realized he was dying he sent his English poems to his friend Ferrar with instructions to publish them, if he thought they might 'turn to the advantage of any dejected soul', and otherwise to burn them. The Temple, containing nearly all his surviving English poems, was published in 1633. Outlandish Proverbs (a collection of foreign proverbs in translation) in 1640, and Herbert's prose picture of the model country parson, A Priest to the Temple, in 1652, as part of Herbert's Remains. His translation of Luigi Cornaro's Trattato de la vita sobria appeared in 1634, and his 'Brief Notes' on Juan de Valdes's Hundred and Ten Considerations in 1638. He told Ferrar that his poems represented 'a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul'. They were much admired in the 17th cent. and 13 editions of The Temple came out between 1633 and 1679. In the 18th cent. Herbert went out of fashion, though J. *Wesley adapted some of his poems. The Romantic age saw a revival, and the appreciative note in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (1817) enhanced Herbert's reputation. Modern critics have noted the subtlety rather than the simplicity of his poems, seeing them as an attempt to express the ultimately ineffable complications of the spiritual life. The precise nature of Herbert's relationship to Calvinism has also generated debate. See Works (ed. F. E. Hutchinson, 1941); Amy M. Charles, Life (1977).

—oOo—

_________________

Goldsmith, Oliver

From the Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble:


GOLDSMITH, Oliver (?1730-74), the second son of an Anglo-Irish clergyman, born probably at Pallas, Co. Longford, or perhaps at Elphin, Roscommon. He spent much of his childhood at Lissoy, and is thought to have drawn on his memories of it when writing The Deserted Village. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated after some upheavals in 1750; he then presented himself for ordination, was rejected, and went to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine but took no degree. He studied in Leiden, and during 1755-6 wandered about France, Switzerland, and Italy, reaching London destitute in 1756, where he supported himself with difficulty as a physician in Southwark and as an usher in Peckham; he may at this period have received a medical degree from Trinity, though this remains unclear. He applied for a medical post in India, but failed to obtain it; meanwhile he had embarked on a literary career as reviewer and hack-writer for Griffith's Monthly Review, one of his early pieces being a favourable review of Burker's Philosophical Enquiry . . . into the *Sublime and Beautiful. *Burke was to become a close friend. In 1758 he published, under the pseudyonym 'James Willington', his translation of The Memoirs of a Protestant, Condemned to the Galleys in France Because of His Religion (by Jean Marteilhe of Bergerac, a victim of the Edict of Nantes), and in 1759 his frist substantial work, An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. It was at this period he met *Percy, later bishop of Dromore, who was to become a loyal friend and also his biographer. He was by now contributing to many periodicals (the Busy Body, the Monthly Review, the *Critical Review, the Ladies' Magazine, etc.), and during Oct. and Nov. 1759 published his own little periodical, the Bee, in which appeared his 'Elegy on Mrs Mary Blaize' (a pawn-broker) and 'A City Night-Piece'. He contributed to *Smollett's British Magazine, started in 1760, and was also employed by *Newbery, for whose new Public Ledger he wroter his 'Chinese Letters', subsequently republished as The Citizen of the World in 1762; he is also said to have written the nursery tale Goody Two-Shoes. In 1761 he met Dr. *Johnson, who admired his work; he became one of the original members of Johnson's *Club. Johnson remained his friend and champion, and in 1762 sold for him the (possibly unfinished) manuscript of The Vicar of Wakefield to Newbery, thereby saving him from arrest for debt. Goldsmith was still struggling as a writer, and making his living with a variety of hack-work in the form of biographies, compilations, translations, abridgements, etc: these include lives of *Voltaire (1761) and Beau *Nash (1762), an abridgement of *Plutarch (1762), a History of England in a series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son (1764), a Roman History (1769), a Grecian History (1774), lives of T. *Parnell and *Bolingbroke (1770), etc.—in all more than 40 volumes. But he first achieved literary distinction with his poem The Traveller (1764), who introduced him to his only patron, Lord Clare; it was his first signed work, and was much admired by Johnson and *Fox among others. The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), who was to become one of the most popular works of fiction in the language, was slower to find its audience, possibly because it was, as the Monthly Review commented, 'difficult to characterise'.

Goldsmith's first comedy, The Good-Natur'd Man, was rejected by *Garrick but produced at Covent Garden in 1768 with moderate success; She Stoops to Conquer followed in 1773 with immense success. Goldsmith had criticized the vogue for *sentimental comedy and the prejudice against laughter (see CHESTERFIELD) in an essay in the Westminster Magazine entitled 'A Comparison between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy' (1773); his own play's lasting popularity justified his comments.

His best-known poem, The Deserted Village, was published in 1770; his lighter verses include Retaliation (1774) and the posthumously published The Haunch of Venison (1776), written to thank Lord Clare for a gift of game from his estate. His An History of the Earth and Animated Nature (1774), also published posthumously, in eight volumes adapted from *Buffon, *Linnaeus, *Ray, and others, inventively portrays 'tygers' in Canada, and squirrels migrating on bark boats in Lapland, fanning themselves along with their tails.

There are many anecdotes about Goldsmith in Boswell's Life of *Johnson which represent him as ridiculous, vain, extravagantly dressed, improvident, and naive, but also as tender-hearted, simple, and generous, with flashes of brilliance in conversation (despite Garrick's gibe that he 'wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll'). He was regarded with much affection; Johnson, in his Latin epitaph, stated that he adorned whatever he touched. He never married, and his relationship with Mary Horneck, his 'Jessamy bride', remains mysterious. He was introduced to the Horneck family by *Reynolds in 1766, when Mary was 14, and accompanied Mrs. Horneck, Mary, and her other daughter Catherine ('Little Comedy', who married H. W. *Bunbury) to Paris in 1770; in 1773 he attacked Thomas Evans for publishing in the London Packet a letter from 'Tom Tickler' mocking his feelings for 'the lovely H——k'. She long outlived him, and provided material for J. Prior's life (1837); another biographer, W. *Irving (1844), concluded that Goldsmith had suffered from unrequited love, but this has been much disputed.

The 1801 Miscellaneous Works contain Percy's memoir, and there are other lives by J. Forster (1848) and Ralph M Wardle (1957). The Collected Works (5 vols, 1966) were edited by A. Friedman, and the correspondence by K. C. Balderston (1928).

She Stoops to Conquer

—oOo—

Thomas Traherne

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble.

Traherne, Thomas (1637-74), son of a shoemaker in Hereford. It seems possible that both his parents died while he and his brother Philip were infants, and the boys were brought up by a wealthy innkeeper, Philip Traherne, twice mayor of Hereford. They evidently had a good education, but no record exists of their attending Hereford Cathedral School. Thomas went up to Brasenose College, Oxford, as a commoner in March 1653, and took his BA in October 1656. In 1657 the parliamentary commissioners appointed him rector of Credenhill, Herefordshire, but he seems not to have resided there until 1661. He was ordained in 1660, and the following year took his Oxford MA. At Credenhill he joined the religious circle centring on Susanna Hopton at Kington, for whom he was to write the Centuries. During this period he evidently travelled to Oxford to work on Roman Forgeries in the Bodleian. Probably in recognition of this work he gained his BD in 1669, and also his appointment the same year as chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgeman, lord keeper of the great seal, which necessitated his moving to London. He was buried at Teddington.

Traherne led a 'single and devout life', according to A. *Wood. He left five houses in Hereford in trust for the poor people of All Saints parish. He told *Aubrey that he had visions, seeing, on one occasion, the phantom of an apprentice who was asleep in the same house, and on another a basket of fruit sailing in the air over his bed. Traherne's Centuries and many of his poems were discovered in a notebook (now in the Bodleian) which was picked up for a few pence on a London bookstall in the winter of 1896-7 by W. T. Brooke. Bertram Dobell identified Traherne as the author, and edited the Poetic Works (1903) and the Centuries of Meditations (1908). More poems, prepared for publication by Traherne's brother Philip as 'Poems of Felicity', were discovered in a British Museum manuscript and published by H. I. Bell in 1910. A further manuscript of Select Meditations has since come to light, and is in the collection of the late J. M. Osborn. In his lifetime Traherne published Roman Forgeries (1673), which exposes the falsifying of ecclesiastical documents by the Church of Rome, concentrating in the mid-9th-century collection known as the 'False Decretals' which had, in fact, already been decisively discredited by several 16th-century scholars. His Christian Ethicks (1675) was prepared for the press before he died. But his major achievement comprises the Centuries,  the poems and the Thanksgivings, written in exuberant, unconventional verse, and at times foreshadowing *Whitman, which appeared in 1699. He expresses a rapturous joy in creation unmatched by any other 17th-century writer, and his memories, in the Centuries, of his own early intuitions are the first convincing depiction of childhood experience in English literature. He is also among the first English writers to respond imaginatively to new ideas about infinite space, and at times virtually equates infinite space with God. The boundless potential of man's mind and spirit is his recurrent theme, as is the need for adult man to regain the wonder and simplicity of the child. In both, his thought is influenced by *Neoplatonism, especially by the Hermetic books.

Centuries, Poems and Thanksgivings, ed. H. M. Margoliouth (2 vols, 1958); Christian Ethics, ed. C. L. Marks and G. R. Guffey (1968); G. Wade, Thomas Traherne (1944); K. W. Salter, Thomas Traherne, Mystic and Poet (1964).

"Metaphysical" Religious Poetry: Herbert, Crashaw, and Vaughan