Ron Johnston (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197265277
- eISBN:
- 9780191754203
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265277.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This volume collects together lectures by distinguished scholars. One lecture examines medieval religious relics, focusing on what they actually comprised and asking how these paltry items came to be ...
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This volume collects together lectures by distinguished scholars. One lecture examines medieval religious relics, focusing on what they actually comprised and asking how these paltry items came to be so highly valued. Another lecture takes the authentic medieval Welsh literary corpus associated with Owain Glyndwr, consisting in the main of bardic eulogies rather than prophecies, and examines them in their historical context. A lecture on Alexander Pope asks what part Shaftesbury's polite wit, Mandeville's cynicism, and Augustan sentimentalism played in the poetry of England's greatest satirist. Another lecture focuses on the Romantic poets' fascination with the lens-made and projected images that the modern world has come to think of as the virtual image. A further lecture examines the choices made by young musicians in Renaissance Italy. The next lecture examines how the paradoxical doctrine of ‘the one and the multiple’ was translated into visual language in Chinese Buddhist art. In some cases, groups related to certain numbers bearing metaphorical significances; while in others, objects were simply replicated in large numbers to create a sense of awe. The final lecture explores the way the natural history of the Americas was exported to 16th-century northern European scientists and how they reacted intellectually and politically.Less
This volume collects together lectures by distinguished scholars. One lecture examines medieval religious relics, focusing on what they actually comprised and asking how these paltry items came to be so highly valued. Another lecture takes the authentic medieval Welsh literary corpus associated with Owain Glyndwr, consisting in the main of bardic eulogies rather than prophecies, and examines them in their historical context. A lecture on Alexander Pope asks what part Shaftesbury's polite wit, Mandeville's cynicism, and Augustan sentimentalism played in the poetry of England's greatest satirist. Another lecture focuses on the Romantic poets' fascination with the lens-made and projected images that the modern world has come to think of as the virtual image. A further lecture examines the choices made by young musicians in Renaissance Italy. The next lecture examines how the paradoxical doctrine of ‘the one and the multiple’ was translated into visual language in Chinese Buddhist art. In some cases, groups related to certain numbers bearing metaphorical significances; while in others, objects were simply replicated in large numbers to create a sense of awe. The final lecture explores the way the natural history of the Americas was exported to 16th-century northern European scientists and how they reacted intellectually and politically.
Christopher Tilmouth
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197265277
- eISBN:
- 9780191754203
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265277.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture examines Alexander Pope's depictions of passion and sentiment in a range of early writings, including his ‘Prologue’ to Addison's Cato, Eloisa to Abelard and An Essay on Man. It then ...
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This lecture examines Alexander Pope's depictions of passion and sentiment in a range of early writings, including his ‘Prologue’ to Addison's Cato, Eloisa to Abelard and An Essay on Man. It then shows how often Pope belittled his own forays into affectivity and relates that tendency to a wider interest in ‘sceptical perspectivism’. The presence of the latter is traced in other works such as John Gay's Trivia, Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees and the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury's Characteristics, all of which – the last especially – are invoked to explain the dialogic methods employed in Pope's Rape of the Lock and his Dunciad Variorum. Finally, the argument suggests that, despite suffering a loss of self-confidence in the mid-1730s (evident in the Epistle to Arbuthnot), Pope was able to recover his satirical idiom precisely by fusing his passionate and dialogic concerns in the Epilogue to the Satires of 1738.Less
This lecture examines Alexander Pope's depictions of passion and sentiment in a range of early writings, including his ‘Prologue’ to Addison's Cato, Eloisa to Abelard and An Essay on Man. It then shows how often Pope belittled his own forays into affectivity and relates that tendency to a wider interest in ‘sceptical perspectivism’. The presence of the latter is traced in other works such as John Gay's Trivia, Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees and the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury's Characteristics, all of which – the last especially – are invoked to explain the dialogic methods employed in Pope's Rape of the Lock and his Dunciad Variorum. Finally, the argument suggests that, despite suffering a loss of self-confidence in the mid-1730s (evident in the Epistle to Arbuthnot), Pope was able to recover his satirical idiom precisely by fusing his passionate and dialogic concerns in the Epilogue to the Satires of 1738.
Christine Gerrard
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129820
- eISBN:
- 9780191671869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129820.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
In the Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II, Alexander Pope pronounced himself proud to count George Lyttelton, Lord Cobham, and other Patriots his friends. The extent of Pope's involvement with ...
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In the Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II, Alexander Pope pronounced himself proud to count George Lyttelton, Lord Cobham, and other Patriots his friends. The extent of Pope's involvement with Patriot Whig politics and Prince Frederick raises questions about the traditional equation of Pope with Toryism, and more recently Toryism of a discernibly Jacobite flavour. Pope's close friendships with Patriot Whigs cannot be attributed merely to the political influence of his mentor Bolingbroke. Yet the fluctuating pattern of his commitment to their campaign, alternating between idealism and mistrust, tells us much about broader Tory attitudes towards Patriot Whiggery in this period as well as hinting at more complex and deep-seated sources of ambivalence in the poet himself. Did the deepening pessimism so many critics have discerned in his later years make any form of optimistic patriotism impossible? This chapter looks at the politics of Pope's poetry and the connection between politics and genre, focusing on satire, epic, and tragedy.Less
In the Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II, Alexander Pope pronounced himself proud to count George Lyttelton, Lord Cobham, and other Patriots his friends. The extent of Pope's involvement with Patriot Whig politics and Prince Frederick raises questions about the traditional equation of Pope with Toryism, and more recently Toryism of a discernibly Jacobite flavour. Pope's close friendships with Patriot Whigs cannot be attributed merely to the political influence of his mentor Bolingbroke. Yet the fluctuating pattern of his commitment to their campaign, alternating between idealism and mistrust, tells us much about broader Tory attitudes towards Patriot Whiggery in this period as well as hinting at more complex and deep-seated sources of ambivalence in the poet himself. Did the deepening pessimism so many critics have discerned in his later years make any form of optimistic patriotism impossible? This chapter looks at the politics of Pope's poetry and the connection between politics and genre, focusing on satire, epic, and tragedy.
James Noggle
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199642434
- eISBN:
- 9780191738579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199642434.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
How could the Epistle to Burlington by Alexander Pope, a traditionalist appalled by modern corruption, have recourse to the concept of taste, the most commercially tainted, modish concept of his day? ...
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How could the Epistle to Burlington by Alexander Pope, a traditionalist appalled by modern corruption, have recourse to the concept of taste, the most commercially tainted, modish concept of his day? The dual temporal character of taste allows Pope to define it to suit his own ideological ends. Pope reconfigures the ‘now’of taste to match a classical past and a vision of a better political and cultural future, recognizing true taste’s evacuation from the degraded modern world. Eccentric and unsustainable in itself, Pope’s version of tasteful immediacy nonetheless establishes what will become a standing option in the aesthetic tradition: a rejection of the present by means of a powerful present feeling, one that gestures towards some other imaginable cultural future.Less
How could the Epistle to Burlington by Alexander Pope, a traditionalist appalled by modern corruption, have recourse to the concept of taste, the most commercially tainted, modish concept of his day? The dual temporal character of taste allows Pope to define it to suit his own ideological ends. Pope reconfigures the ‘now’of taste to match a classical past and a vision of a better political and cultural future, recognizing true taste’s evacuation from the degraded modern world. Eccentric and unsustainable in itself, Pope’s version of tasteful immediacy nonetheless establishes what will become a standing option in the aesthetic tradition: a rejection of the present by means of a powerful present feeling, one that gestures towards some other imaginable cultural future.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Among the earliest editors of William Shakespeare were several of the eighteenth century's most powerful writers. This book demonstrates how much was at stake for these writers in the editing of ...
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Among the earliest editors of William Shakespeare were several of the eighteenth century's most powerful writers. This book demonstrates how much was at stake for these writers in the editing of English texts. It examines not only eighteenth-century texts of Shakespeare, but also sources as disparate as Alexander Pope's Dunciad, eighteenth-century classical and scriptural editing, and Samuel Johnson's Dictionary to show the importance of politically contested representations of scholars and scholarship for the formation of British public literary culture. Offering an account of both editorial theory and philological practice during the period, the book throws new light on a wide variety of issues, from the debates over the possibility of a polite and settled national language to the epistemological and cultural presuppositions of editorial method.Less
Among the earliest editors of William Shakespeare were several of the eighteenth century's most powerful writers. This book demonstrates how much was at stake for these writers in the editing of English texts. It examines not only eighteenth-century texts of Shakespeare, but also sources as disparate as Alexander Pope's Dunciad, eighteenth-century classical and scriptural editing, and Samuel Johnson's Dictionary to show the importance of politically contested representations of scholars and scholarship for the formation of British public literary culture. Offering an account of both editorial theory and philological practice during the period, the book throws new light on a wide variety of issues, from the debates over the possibility of a polite and settled national language to the epistemological and cultural presuppositions of editorial method.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
The principal textual-critical responses to Alexander Pope's editorial work were prompted by a desire to contest the view that the disinterested gentleman of letters was the best custodian of William ...
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The principal textual-critical responses to Alexander Pope's editorial work were prompted by a desire to contest the view that the disinterested gentleman of letters was the best custodian of William Shakespeare's text. This disagreement with the presuppositions of Pope's work had important consequences for the project of using critical editing to help polish and refine the English language. It also prompted in part the Dunciad's new and more complex representation of minute criticism. In Pope's later satire on excessively minute criticism both the interested specialist and the leisured dilettante are taken as potential corruptors of the text. Moreover, excessively minute scholarship is taken, both in the Dunciad and in a number of other works of the 1730s, not only as low and interested, but as complicit with, and akin to, arbitrary government.Less
The principal textual-critical responses to Alexander Pope's editorial work were prompted by a desire to contest the view that the disinterested gentleman of letters was the best custodian of William Shakespeare's text. This disagreement with the presuppositions of Pope's work had important consequences for the project of using critical editing to help polish and refine the English language. It also prompted in part the Dunciad's new and more complex representation of minute criticism. In Pope's later satire on excessively minute criticism both the interested specialist and the leisured dilettante are taken as potential corruptors of the text. Moreover, excessively minute scholarship is taken, both in the Dunciad and in a number of other works of the 1730s, not only as low and interested, but as complicit with, and akin to, arbitrary government.
Brean S. Hammond
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112990
- eISBN:
- 9780191670909
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112990.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter comments further on the various contradictions and perplexes embodied in the person and career of Alexander Pope, which have been the genesis of the entire book. It revisits the ...
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This chapter comments further on the various contradictions and perplexes embodied in the person and career of Alexander Pope, which have been the genesis of the entire book. It revisits the paradoxes and complexities of Pope's ideology, concentrating on the elusive nature of the ‘country’ ideology embodied in some of his most significant poetry.Less
This chapter comments further on the various contradictions and perplexes embodied in the person and career of Alexander Pope, which have been the genesis of the entire book. It revisits the paradoxes and complexities of Pope's ideology, concentrating on the elusive nature of the ‘country’ ideology embodied in some of his most significant poetry.
James Sambrook
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198117889
- eISBN:
- 9780191671104
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117889.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This is a full-scale biography of the poet and playwright James Thomson for forty years. On the personal side, it places him in his social and cultural setting: as a welcome member of the disparate ...
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This is a full-scale biography of the poet and playwright James Thomson for forty years. On the personal side, it places him in his social and cultural setting: as a welcome member of the disparate circles that surrounded Alexander Pope, Richard Savage, Aaron Hill, James Quin, George Bubb Dodington, George Lyttelton, Lady Hertford, and Frederick, Prince of Wales. More significantly, for the first time, Thomson's involvement in politics is thoroughly explored. The analysis of his Scottish Whiggism and his role as the poet of Britannia and Liberty places the poetry in a clear ideological light, which at once deepens our understanding of Thomson the man, and illuminates the political groupings of the period. Drawing on his understanding of Thomson's poetry, the author also supplies a full critical analysis of the whole body of Thomson's writings. This new book maintains an even balance between biography, history, and literary criticism, and forms both a study of the man and a companion to the Oxford English Texts edition of the poems.Less
This is a full-scale biography of the poet and playwright James Thomson for forty years. On the personal side, it places him in his social and cultural setting: as a welcome member of the disparate circles that surrounded Alexander Pope, Richard Savage, Aaron Hill, James Quin, George Bubb Dodington, George Lyttelton, Lady Hertford, and Frederick, Prince of Wales. More significantly, for the first time, Thomson's involvement in politics is thoroughly explored. The analysis of his Scottish Whiggism and his role as the poet of Britannia and Liberty places the poetry in a clear ideological light, which at once deepens our understanding of Thomson the man, and illuminates the political groupings of the period. Drawing on his understanding of Thomson's poetry, the author also supplies a full critical analysis of the whole body of Thomson's writings. This new book maintains an even balance between biography, history, and literary criticism, and forms both a study of the man and a companion to the Oxford English Texts edition of the poems.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Lewis Theobald remarked, only half ironically, that Shakespeare's text was sufficiently corrupt for him to stand ‘in the Nature of a Classic Writer’, and hoped that what classical textual critics had ...
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Lewis Theobald remarked, only half ironically, that Shakespeare's text was sufficiently corrupt for him to stand ‘in the Nature of a Classic Writer’, and hoped that what classical textual critics had done for contemporary standards in Greek and Latin might be done by editors of William Shakespeare for English. John Barrell's account of eighteenth-century grammars and dictionaries has argued that their authors and editors relied on an idea of a community of polite speakers and writers of the language which was closely modelled on the community of the electorally enfranchised. Many of those who were to argue for this conception of the language, however, were themselves not propertied gentlemen but professional writers or scholars; and the same applied to editors of Shakespeare. Alexander Pope's view of Shakespeare, and of the state of Shakespeare's text, is decisively influenced by an idea of just taste and language as disinterestedly gentlemanly.Less
Lewis Theobald remarked, only half ironically, that Shakespeare's text was sufficiently corrupt for him to stand ‘in the Nature of a Classic Writer’, and hoped that what classical textual critics had done for contemporary standards in Greek and Latin might be done by editors of William Shakespeare for English. John Barrell's account of eighteenth-century grammars and dictionaries has argued that their authors and editors relied on an idea of a community of polite speakers and writers of the language which was closely modelled on the community of the electorally enfranchised. Many of those who were to argue for this conception of the language, however, were themselves not propertied gentlemen but professional writers or scholars; and the same applied to editors of Shakespeare. Alexander Pope's view of Shakespeare, and of the state of Shakespeare's text, is decisively influenced by an idea of just taste and language as disinterestedly gentlemanly.
Edmund G. C. King
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199641819
- eISBN:
- 9780191749025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641819.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter revisits the question of why Double Falsehood/Cardenio never became part of the Shakespeare canon. Looking at the reception of Double Falsehood in the late 1720s, it argues that the play ...
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This chapter revisits the question of why Double Falsehood/Cardenio never became part of the Shakespeare canon. Looking at the reception of Double Falsehood in the late 1720s, it argues that the play surfaced at a particularly fraught moment in the history of editorial scholarship in England. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, collected editions of authors’ works tended to be inclusive: successive editions were puffed according to how many ‘new’ works they added to their authors’ canons. Starting with Alexander Pope, however, eighteenth-century Shakespeare editors began to distinguish themselves according to their connoisseurship, their ability to separate genuine works from the spurious. In the dispute between Pope and Lewis Theobald over the play’s authenticity, this chapter argues, Double Falsehood became a ‘test case’ for this new, sceptical approach to canon formation, a process that had unfortunately drastic and conclusive results for the play itself.Less
This chapter revisits the question of why Double Falsehood/Cardenio never became part of the Shakespeare canon. Looking at the reception of Double Falsehood in the late 1720s, it argues that the play surfaced at a particularly fraught moment in the history of editorial scholarship in England. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, collected editions of authors’ works tended to be inclusive: successive editions were puffed according to how many ‘new’ works they added to their authors’ canons. Starting with Alexander Pope, however, eighteenth-century Shakespeare editors began to distinguish themselves according to their connoisseurship, their ability to separate genuine works from the spurious. In the dispute between Pope and Lewis Theobald over the play’s authenticity, this chapter argues, Double Falsehood became a ‘test case’ for this new, sceptical approach to canon formation, a process that had unfortunately drastic and conclusive results for the play itself.
Valerie Rumbold
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264775
- eISBN:
- 9780191734984
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264775.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter presents the text of a lecture on Alexander Pope's literary satire Dunciad given at the British Academy's 2010 Warton Lecture on English Poetry. This text discusses the difficulty of ...
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This chapter presents the text of a lecture on Alexander Pope's literary satire Dunciad given at the British Academy's 2010 Warton Lecture on English Poetry. This text discusses the difficulty of Samuel Johnson in interpreting Pope's couplet in the Dunciad which depicts the Sea of Azov and the river that flows into it. It suggests that analysing the process through which Pope shaped this couplet can help provide a better understanding of the wider significance of the couplet's structure and Pope's work more generally.Less
This chapter presents the text of a lecture on Alexander Pope's literary satire Dunciad given at the British Academy's 2010 Warton Lecture on English Poetry. This text discusses the difficulty of Samuel Johnson in interpreting Pope's couplet in the Dunciad which depicts the Sea of Azov and the river that flows into it. It suggests that analysing the process through which Pope shaped this couplet can help provide a better understanding of the wider significance of the couplet's structure and Pope's work more generally.
Thomas Karshan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199603985
- eISBN:
- 9780191725333
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603985.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Although the main movement of Nabokov's American writing is towards free play, in Pale Fire he produced a work which is like a game, in the way it encourages an active reader to rearrange its pieces, ...
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Although the main movement of Nabokov's American writing is towards free play, in Pale Fire he produced a work which is like a game, in the way it encourages an active reader to rearrange its pieces, to try out various imaginative possibilities, and to solve its innumerable puzzles. John Shade's epiphany about the gods playing a game of worlds provides an image for Pale Fire, which is about the relation between world games and word games. Chapter 6 shows how in Pale Fire, Nabokov wrote a literary game inspired by his work on editing Eugene Onegin, in the research for which he learned about a tradition of the lusus or literary game which goes forward from Alexander Pope to Pushkin, and back to Erasmus and More. Pale Fire imitates Alexander Pope's Dunciad and weaves an intricate allusive web to Pope's work.Less
Although the main movement of Nabokov's American writing is towards free play, in Pale Fire he produced a work which is like a game, in the way it encourages an active reader to rearrange its pieces, to try out various imaginative possibilities, and to solve its innumerable puzzles. John Shade's epiphany about the gods playing a game of worlds provides an image for Pale Fire, which is about the relation between world games and word games. Chapter 6 shows how in Pale Fire, Nabokov wrote a literary game inspired by his work on editing Eugene Onegin, in the research for which he learned about a tradition of the lusus or literary game which goes forward from Alexander Pope to Pushkin, and back to Erasmus and More. Pale Fire imitates Alexander Pope's Dunciad and weaves an intricate allusive web to Pope's work.
Abigail Williams
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199255207
- eISBN:
- 9780191719837
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199255207.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter begins by exploring Whig perspectives on the Revolution a decade after 1688. By the end of the 1690s, it was possible to write simultaneously of the Revolution as a return to earlier ...
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This chapter begins by exploring Whig perspectives on the Revolution a decade after 1688. By the end of the 1690s, it was possible to write simultaneously of the Revolution as a return to earlier historical paradigms and as the beginning of a new era: to claim both historical precedent and inaugural status for 1688. The dual perspective was to reverberate throughout the public poetry of Queen Anne's reign, as writers debated the relevance and authority of pre-existing literary forms in relation to the celebration of contemporary affairs of state, and in particular the celebration of the victories of the War of the Spanish Succession. The chapter examines some of the verse produced in the context of these political debates, including poems on Blenheim Palace; Ambrose Philips's and Alexander Pope's pastoral wars, and the poems celebrating the Treaty of Utrecht.Less
This chapter begins by exploring Whig perspectives on the Revolution a decade after 1688. By the end of the 1690s, it was possible to write simultaneously of the Revolution as a return to earlier historical paradigms and as the beginning of a new era: to claim both historical precedent and inaugural status for 1688. The dual perspective was to reverberate throughout the public poetry of Queen Anne's reign, as writers debated the relevance and authority of pre-existing literary forms in relation to the celebration of contemporary affairs of state, and in particular the celebration of the victories of the War of the Spanish Succession. The chapter examines some of the verse produced in the context of these political debates, including poems on Blenheim Palace; Ambrose Philips's and Alexander Pope's pastoral wars, and the poems celebrating the Treaty of Utrecht.
H. E. J. COWDREY
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199259601
- eISBN:
- 9780191717406
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199259601.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
This chapter discusses the ecclesiastical background to Lanfranc's becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. In a letter probably of early 1073, Lanfranc testified to his long and stubborn resistance in ...
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This chapter discusses the ecclesiastical background to Lanfranc's becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. In a letter probably of early 1073, Lanfranc testified to his long and stubborn resistance in 1070 to accepting the promotion. Two persons were mainly instrumental in overcoming his resistance. The first was Herluin, his sometime abbot at Bec, to whom he acknowledged a lasting obedience; King William used him to assist in persuading Lanfranc. Lanfranc provides evidence that a probably still greater part in overcoming his resistance was played by Pope Alexander II. The chapter also looks at two matters that illustrate Lanfranc's approach and actions: the career and character of his predecessor at Canterbury, Archbishop Stigand; and the standpoint taken with regard to the English church by the apostolic see under Pope Alexander II.Less
This chapter discusses the ecclesiastical background to Lanfranc's becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. In a letter probably of early 1073, Lanfranc testified to his long and stubborn resistance in 1070 to accepting the promotion. Two persons were mainly instrumental in overcoming his resistance. The first was Herluin, his sometime abbot at Bec, to whom he acknowledged a lasting obedience; King William used him to assist in persuading Lanfranc. Lanfranc provides evidence that a probably still greater part in overcoming his resistance was played by Pope Alexander II. The chapter also looks at two matters that illustrate Lanfranc's approach and actions: the career and character of his predecessor at Canterbury, Archbishop Stigand; and the standpoint taken with regard to the English church by the apostolic see under Pope Alexander II.
Richard H. Armstrong
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199288076
- eISBN:
- 9780191713439
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199288076.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic ...
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This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic adaptations and translational practices of Roman authors, with particular focus on Ennius and Virgil. It also treats lesser-known translations of Greek epic from Roman times, and outlines the continuing history of Latin translation during the Renaissance, which was very influential for the burgeoning literatures of Western Europe. Then it details how this Latin tradition still informs the ‘classic’ English translations of George Chapman, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and William Cowper, who still read their Greek under the strong influence not only of Latin literary values, but also of Latin translational practices. While the Latin tradition was highly influential in shaping European retranslation of Greek epic, that tradition itself effectively produced no translation on a par with Chapman's Homer or Dryden's Virgil.Less
This chapter discusses the retranslation of Greek epic poetry and argues for its importance in understanding how literary traditions shape the translation scenario. First, it treats the epic adaptations and translational practices of Roman authors, with particular focus on Ennius and Virgil. It also treats lesser-known translations of Greek epic from Roman times, and outlines the continuing history of Latin translation during the Renaissance, which was very influential for the burgeoning literatures of Western Europe. Then it details how this Latin tradition still informs the ‘classic’ English translations of George Chapman, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and William Cowper, who still read their Greek under the strong influence not only of Latin literary values, but also of Latin translational practices. While the Latin tradition was highly influential in shaping European retranslation of Greek epic, that tradition itself effectively produced no translation on a par with Chapman's Homer or Dryden's Virgil.
Anthony Ossa-Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691167954
- eISBN:
- 9780691188775
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691167954.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter addresses how readers argue over multiple meanings in Homer, as well as Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad. The conflict over the ambiguities of the Iliad was a small part of a ...
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This chapter addresses how readers argue over multiple meanings in Homer, as well as Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad. The conflict over the ambiguities of the Iliad was a small part of a broader reckoning of Homer, which itself was only the battle, not the war. The exchanges detailed here reveal less about the culture of Homeric scholarship than about the hermeneutic moves available to neoclassical critics with a shared canon of linguistic assumptions—a canon subtending the many differences between, say, the Ancients and Moderns. Ambiguity is here an artifice manipulated in a variety of ways to negotiate the text. Pope had his own, nuanced relationship to the ambiguities of the Iliad. It has long been argued that he misses the feel and tone of Homer's epic, and certain celebrity responses to this effect—from the dismissive to the thoughtful—have become canonical. However, one of Pope's merits is that he consistently brings out the poem's double meanings, often by giving both possible senses of a phrase or line in either parataxis or hypotaxis.Less
This chapter addresses how readers argue over multiple meanings in Homer, as well as Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad. The conflict over the ambiguities of the Iliad was a small part of a broader reckoning of Homer, which itself was only the battle, not the war. The exchanges detailed here reveal less about the culture of Homeric scholarship than about the hermeneutic moves available to neoclassical critics with a shared canon of linguistic assumptions—a canon subtending the many differences between, say, the Ancients and Moderns. Ambiguity is here an artifice manipulated in a variety of ways to negotiate the text. Pope had his own, nuanced relationship to the ambiguities of the Iliad. It has long been argued that he misses the feel and tone of Homer's epic, and certain celebrity responses to this effect—from the dismissive to the thoughtful—have become canonical. However, one of Pope's merits is that he consistently brings out the poem's double meanings, often by giving both possible senses of a phrase or line in either parataxis or hypotaxis.
Normal Housley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199227051
- eISBN:
- 9780191746031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199227051.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter considers the most important feature of crusading's devotional and economic impact, the distribution of indulgences in exchange for financial contributions. In the first place, it ...
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This chapter considers the most important feature of crusading's devotional and economic impact, the distribution of indulgences in exchange for financial contributions. In the first place, it attempts to locate the period's most significant indulgence commissioner, Raymond Perault, in terms of his predecessors and contemporaries. Secondly, the popularity of crusading indulgences and the criticism to which the practice was subjected are assessed. And lastly, Perault's attempt to promote a crusade in the empire between 1501 and 1503 is reconsidered. The focus is on the exceptional challenge that Perault confronted, namely a duplicitous pope, a volatile political situation in Germany, and an organizational task of massive proportions.Less
This chapter considers the most important feature of crusading's devotional and economic impact, the distribution of indulgences in exchange for financial contributions. In the first place, it attempts to locate the period's most significant indulgence commissioner, Raymond Perault, in terms of his predecessors and contemporaries. Secondly, the popularity of crusading indulgences and the criticism to which the practice was subjected are assessed. And lastly, Perault's attempt to promote a crusade in the empire between 1501 and 1503 is reconsidered. The focus is on the exceptional challenge that Perault confronted, namely a duplicitous pope, a volatile political situation in Germany, and an organizational task of massive proportions.
Jayne Elizabeth Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226476698
- eISBN:
- 9780226476711
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226476711.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock was the closest he would come to being a “poet of nature.” Through his work, Pope brought a world of pretenses—the “airs” that human beings affect. Sixty years ...
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Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock was the closest he would come to being a “poet of nature.” Through his work, Pope brought a world of pretenses—the “airs” that human beings affect. Sixty years later, his crony John Arbuthnot distinguished air by its facile passage between what we shape and see, and what we do not. It is Pope that invited us to think that if planets can have atmosphere, cannot a poem have one too? Cleanth Brook’s study of The Rape of the Lock questions what it means for a literary work to be “know bathed in an atmosphere.” Even as we somehow “know” what “bathed in an atmosphere” means, does that make social convention and literary experience legitimate foundations of natural knowledge?Less
Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock was the closest he would come to being a “poet of nature.” Through his work, Pope brought a world of pretenses—the “airs” that human beings affect. Sixty years later, his crony John Arbuthnot distinguished air by its facile passage between what we shape and see, and what we do not. It is Pope that invited us to think that if planets can have atmosphere, cannot a poem have one too? Cleanth Brook’s study of The Rape of the Lock questions what it means for a literary work to be “know bathed in an atmosphere.” Even as we somehow “know” what “bathed in an atmosphere” means, does that make social convention and literary experience legitimate foundations of natural knowledge?
Paul Baines and Pat Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199278985
- eISBN:
- 9780191700002
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278985.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Edmund Curll was a notorious figure among the publishers of the early eighteenth century: for his boldness, his lack of scruple, his publication of work without authors' consent, and his taste for ...
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Edmund Curll was a notorious figure among the publishers of the early eighteenth century: for his boldness, his lack of scruple, his publication of work without authors' consent, and his taste for erotic and scandalous publications. He was in legal trouble on several occasions for piracy and copyright infringement, unauthorised publication of the works of peers, and for seditious, blasphemous, and obscene publications. He stood in the pillory in 1728 for seditious libel. Above all, he was the constant target of the greatest poet and satirist of his age, Alexander Pope, whose work he pirated whenever he could and who responded with direct physical revenge (an emetic slipped into a drink) and persistent malign caricature. The war between Pope and Curll typifies some of the main cultural battles being waged between creativity and business. The story has normally been told from the poet's point of view, though more recently Curll has been celebrated as a kind of literary freedom-fighter. This book seeks to give a balanced and thoroughly-researched account of Curll's career in publishing between 1706 and 1747, untangling the mistakes and misrepresentations that have accrued over the years and restoring a clear sense of perspective to Curll's dealings in the literary marketplace. It examines the full range of Curll's output, including his notable antiquarian series, and uses extensive archive material to detail Curll's legal and other troubles, telling what is known about this strange and awkward figure.Less
Edmund Curll was a notorious figure among the publishers of the early eighteenth century: for his boldness, his lack of scruple, his publication of work without authors' consent, and his taste for erotic and scandalous publications. He was in legal trouble on several occasions for piracy and copyright infringement, unauthorised publication of the works of peers, and for seditious, blasphemous, and obscene publications. He stood in the pillory in 1728 for seditious libel. Above all, he was the constant target of the greatest poet and satirist of his age, Alexander Pope, whose work he pirated whenever he could and who responded with direct physical revenge (an emetic slipped into a drink) and persistent malign caricature. The war between Pope and Curll typifies some of the main cultural battles being waged between creativity and business. The story has normally been told from the poet's point of view, though more recently Curll has been celebrated as a kind of literary freedom-fighter. This book seeks to give a balanced and thoroughly-researched account of Curll's career in publishing between 1706 and 1747, untangling the mistakes and misrepresentations that have accrued over the years and restoring a clear sense of perspective to Curll's dealings in the literary marketplace. It examines the full range of Curll's output, including his notable antiquarian series, and uses extensive archive material to detail Curll's legal and other troubles, telling what is known about this strange and awkward figure.
Jane Spencer
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199262960
- eISBN:
- 9780191718731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199262960.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter shows how ideas of literary patrilineage were affected by the hierarchized and gendered divide between spirit and matter: with spirit associated with masculinity and paternity and matter ...
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This chapter shows how ideas of literary patrilineage were affected by the hierarchized and gendered divide between spirit and matter: with spirit associated with masculinity and paternity and matter with femininity and maternity. Through a case study of Dryden and his relation to three filial figures: his son John; his chosen poetic heir, William Congreve; and his later literary son, Alexander Pope, it demonstrates the importance of a disembodied and metaphorical father-son relationship to the creation of poetic lineage, and indicates the problematic nature of the relationship between paternal mentoring and literary inheritance. The chapter further argues that the exclusivity of the father-son relationship as a model for literary inheritance was challenged by the advent of women writers claiming metaphorical daughterhood to literary fathers. This phenomenon is examined through a case study of Samuel Johnson's mentoring of Frances Burney and the father-daughter relationship established between them.Less
This chapter shows how ideas of literary patrilineage were affected by the hierarchized and gendered divide between spirit and matter: with spirit associated with masculinity and paternity and matter with femininity and maternity. Through a case study of Dryden and his relation to three filial figures: his son John; his chosen poetic heir, William Congreve; and his later literary son, Alexander Pope, it demonstrates the importance of a disembodied and metaphorical father-son relationship to the creation of poetic lineage, and indicates the problematic nature of the relationship between paternal mentoring and literary inheritance. The chapter further argues that the exclusivity of the father-son relationship as a model for literary inheritance was challenged by the advent of women writers claiming metaphorical daughterhood to literary fathers. This phenomenon is examined through a case study of Samuel Johnson's mentoring of Frances Burney and the father-daughter relationship established between them.
