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.
