Paul Williamson
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182887
- eISBN:
- 9780191673900
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182887.003.0015
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature, 18th-century Literature
William Collins’s odes divide neatly into the two kinds of lyric, sublime and beautiful, Greater and Lesser, distinguished by neo-classical critics, and his repeated use of the progress structure ...
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William Collins’s odes divide neatly into the two kinds of lyric, sublime and beautiful, Greater and Lesser, distinguished by neo-classical critics, and his repeated use of the progress structure situates his work in ‘one of the most popular poetic genres of the 17th and 18th centuries’. The plan to publish his Odes jointly with Joseph Warton indicates the extent to which his thinking about the general direction of poetry was in harmony with that of at least some of his generation. Even Collins’s version of Neoplatonism finds a contemporary analogue in the work of a philosopher expressly admired by Collins, James Harris (1709–80), the nephew of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. This chapter shows how Collins’s verse is built on a mixture of historical elements. The difficulties of his situation emerged from a willingness to confront the set of formal and intellectual presuppositions with which he was engaged, and the recognition that these were inherent in the kind of poetry he was trying to write.Less
William Collins’s odes divide neatly into the two kinds of lyric, sublime and beautiful, Greater and Lesser, distinguished by neo-classical critics, and his repeated use of the progress structure situates his work in ‘one of the most popular poetic genres of the 17th and 18th centuries’. The plan to publish his Odes jointly with Joseph Warton indicates the extent to which his thinking about the general direction of poetry was in harmony with that of at least some of his generation. Even Collins’s version of Neoplatonism finds a contemporary analogue in the work of a philosopher expressly admired by Collins, James Harris (1709–80), the nephew of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. This chapter shows how Collins’s verse is built on a mixture of historical elements. The difficulties of his situation emerged from a willingness to confront the set of formal and intellectual presuppositions with which he was engaged, and the recognition that these were inherent in the kind of poetry he was trying to write.
James Whitehead
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- July 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198733706
- eISBN:
- 9780191798054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198733706.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter discusses the vicissitudes of creative madness, enthusiasm, and inspiration in the eighteenth century, in relation to writing by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, whose satirical ...
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This chapter discusses the vicissitudes of creative madness, enthusiasm, and inspiration in the eighteenth century, in relation to writing by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, whose satirical attacks damaged the viability of one side of the classical and Renaissance tradition. The chapter then discusses eighteenth-century ‘mad poets’ such as William Collins and William Cowper, and also Charlotte Smith, all of whom subsequently struggled to articulate formerly available ideas of creative madness. This tension is analysed through the discussion of mad poet figures as they appear in later eighteenth-century prospect poetry, in scenes of increasing mental precipitousness. The chapter concludes with a discussion of visual images of poetry and madness in these writers, Goya, and William Blake.Less
This chapter discusses the vicissitudes of creative madness, enthusiasm, and inspiration in the eighteenth century, in relation to writing by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, whose satirical attacks damaged the viability of one side of the classical and Renaissance tradition. The chapter then discusses eighteenth-century ‘mad poets’ such as William Collins and William Cowper, and also Charlotte Smith, all of whom subsequently struggled to articulate formerly available ideas of creative madness. This tension is analysed through the discussion of mad poet figures as they appear in later eighteenth-century prospect poetry, in scenes of increasing mental precipitousness. The chapter concludes with a discussion of visual images of poetry and madness in these writers, Goya, and William Blake.
Richard Wendorf
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- April 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192898135
- eISBN:
- 9780191924583
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192898135.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
The presence—and subsequent disappearance—of pervasive capitalization, italics, and caps and small caps in eighteenth-century English texts has occasionally been noted but it has never been ...
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The presence—and subsequent disappearance—of pervasive capitalization, italics, and caps and small caps in eighteenth-century English texts has occasionally been noted but it has never been thoroughly documented or analyzed, let alone in the full context of the history of the book. This introductory chapter provides the terminology and historical framework in which to site this fundamental change in printing conventions and thus in the appearance of the English page. Taking the poetry of William Collins and Alexander Pope as starting points, this chapter reveals that the tipping point for the emergence of the modern page was 1765 and that texts were printed almost entirely in this new, less cluttered, more elegant style by 1780. This analysis is based on an extensive database that includes books printed in a wide variety of genres.Less
The presence—and subsequent disappearance—of pervasive capitalization, italics, and caps and small caps in eighteenth-century English texts has occasionally been noted but it has never been thoroughly documented or analyzed, let alone in the full context of the history of the book. This introductory chapter provides the terminology and historical framework in which to site this fundamental change in printing conventions and thus in the appearance of the English page. Taking the poetry of William Collins and Alexander Pope as starting points, this chapter reveals that the tipping point for the emergence of the modern page was 1765 and that texts were printed almost entirely in this new, less cluttered, more elegant style by 1780. This analysis is based on an extensive database that includes books printed in a wide variety of genres.
Christopher R. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198769774
- eISBN:
- 9780191822605
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769774.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter examines how Milton, celebrated as an epic poet, became a presiding muse of lyric poetry during a period when the generic category of lyric came to be expanded in scope and elevated in ...
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This chapter examines how Milton, celebrated as an epic poet, became a presiding muse of lyric poetry during a period when the generic category of lyric came to be expanded in scope and elevated in literary prestige. It argues for the formal and thematic influence of Milton’s companion-poems, L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, as models for the eighteenth-century ‘great ode’. In particular, Milton’s concern with voluntary choice and eudaimonia in those poems was reborn in the eighteenth-century vogue for what might be called the poetry of health—a poetry concerned with the well-being of both body and mind, both poet and poetic tradition. The chapter traces that concern in the works of Anne Finch, John Pomfret, Thomas Parnell, Joseph Warton, William Collins, and Mark Akenside.Less
This chapter examines how Milton, celebrated as an epic poet, became a presiding muse of lyric poetry during a period when the generic category of lyric came to be expanded in scope and elevated in literary prestige. It argues for the formal and thematic influence of Milton’s companion-poems, L’Allegro and Il Penseroso, as models for the eighteenth-century ‘great ode’. In particular, Milton’s concern with voluntary choice and eudaimonia in those poems was reborn in the eighteenth-century vogue for what might be called the poetry of health—a poetry concerned with the well-being of both body and mind, both poet and poetic tradition. The chapter traces that concern in the works of Anne Finch, John Pomfret, Thomas Parnell, Joseph Warton, William Collins, and Mark Akenside.
Dustin D. Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198857792
- eISBN:
- 9780191890413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198857792.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
The book as a whole emphasizes a productive discontinuity between various eighteenth-century poets and both their Miltonic sources and their Romantic successors. Two interludes, however, qualify this ...
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The book as a whole emphasizes a productive discontinuity between various eighteenth-century poets and both their Miltonic sources and their Romantic successors. Two interludes, however, qualify this picture by showing how a mortalist poetics, shared by the late Milton and some early Romantic writers, persisted in between the two in certain quarters of Enlightenment England. The first interlude focuses on the poet James Thomson. It identifies and discusses a few of the theological implications of his Poem Sacred to the Memory of Isaac Newton (1727) and his revisions to The Seasons (1730).Less
The book as a whole emphasizes a productive discontinuity between various eighteenth-century poets and both their Miltonic sources and their Romantic successors. Two interludes, however, qualify this picture by showing how a mortalist poetics, shared by the late Milton and some early Romantic writers, persisted in between the two in certain quarters of Enlightenment England. The first interlude focuses on the poet James Thomson. It identifies and discusses a few of the theological implications of his Poem Sacred to the Memory of Isaac Newton (1727) and his revisions to The Seasons (1730).
