Peter Mcdonald
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199661190
- eISBN:
- 9780191749049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199661190.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This chapter looks at Wordsworth's repetitions. It considers ‘The Thorn’ and examines Wordsworth on metre, and the metrical patterns in ‘Ode to Duty’. Next the chapter looks at Coleridge on the ...
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This chapter looks at Wordsworth's repetitions. It considers ‘The Thorn’ and examines Wordsworth on metre, and the metrical patterns in ‘Ode to Duty’. Next the chapter looks at Coleridge on the Immortality Ode and ‘flux and reflux’. It moves on to Wordsworth on ‘purpose’, and the manifestation of this in his blank verse, especially The Prelude. It examines line-end repetition in blank verse, from Milton and Cowper to Wordsworth. The chapter then considers the influence on Coleridge's conversation poems; patterns and meaning of repetition in Home at Grasmere; and the ideas of flux, reflux, and repose as figured in the poem's verse. It describes image of the stream in Wordsworth's blank verse, and its relation to movement and repetition of thought. It goes on to analyse the Immortality Ode; and rhyme, repetition, and the sounding of intention. It considers The Excursion and meaning of repetition, Milton's importance for the Immortality Ode, and the significance of Wordsworth's choice of rhymes (and words not rhymed) in the poem. Finally it looks at Wordsworth and the rhymed voice of intention.Less
This chapter looks at Wordsworth's repetitions. It considers ‘The Thorn’ and examines Wordsworth on metre, and the metrical patterns in ‘Ode to Duty’. Next the chapter looks at Coleridge on the Immortality Ode and ‘flux and reflux’. It moves on to Wordsworth on ‘purpose’, and the manifestation of this in his blank verse, especially The Prelude. It examines line-end repetition in blank verse, from Milton and Cowper to Wordsworth. The chapter then considers the influence on Coleridge's conversation poems; patterns and meaning of repetition in Home at Grasmere; and the ideas of flux, reflux, and repose as figured in the poem's verse. It describes image of the stream in Wordsworth's blank verse, and its relation to movement and repetition of thought. It goes on to analyse the Immortality Ode; and rhyme, repetition, and the sounding of intention. It considers The Excursion and meaning of repetition, Milton's importance for the Immortality Ode, and the significance of Wordsworth's choice of rhymes (and words not rhymed) in the poem. Finally it looks at Wordsworth and the rhymed voice of intention.
W. A. Sessions
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198186250
- eISBN:
- 9780191674457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186250.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
What is remarkable about the Earl of Surrey's blank verse is that it has no clear origin except within one personality and one life-story. Whatever conceptions and techniques Surrey developed from ...
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What is remarkable about the Earl of Surrey's blank verse is that it has no clear origin except within one personality and one life-story. Whatever conceptions and techniques Surrey developed from specific literary sources, whether Geoffrey Chaucer, the French, the Italians, or Gawain Douglas, finally and mysteriously the blank verse originated out of a single person — Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Before Surrey, in English, as an astute editor of Thomas Wyatt has observed, there had been ‘nothing quite like it’. Blank verse with its flexibility, its ‘readiness’, in T. S. Eliot's term, surprised everyone. It had not evolved with time but was suddenly, ‘immediately’, invented — by a young man, not always mature, at a specific time and place terrible in their dislocations.Less
What is remarkable about the Earl of Surrey's blank verse is that it has no clear origin except within one personality and one life-story. Whatever conceptions and techniques Surrey developed from specific literary sources, whether Geoffrey Chaucer, the French, the Italians, or Gawain Douglas, finally and mysteriously the blank verse originated out of a single person — Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Before Surrey, in English, as an astute editor of Thomas Wyatt has observed, there had been ‘nothing quite like it’. Blank verse with its flexibility, its ‘readiness’, in T. S. Eliot's term, surprised everyone. It had not evolved with time but was suddenly, ‘immediately’, invented — by a young man, not always mature, at a specific time and place terrible in their dislocations.
Dustin D. Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198769774
- eISBN:
- 9780191822605
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769774.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter surveys revisionist appropriations of Paradise Lost developed by Whig poets and theorists in the wake of the Battle of Blenheim (1704). Resisting the scholarly tendency to draw a great ...
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This chapter surveys revisionist appropriations of Paradise Lost developed by Whig poets and theorists in the wake of the Battle of Blenheim (1704). Resisting the scholarly tendency to draw a great gulf between Milton and his immediate poetic successors, it argues that later writers continued to feel, as Milton felt, longing for an angel’s body. Such yearning became a feature of post-Miltonic blank verse. After first examining the Blenheim effect—Whig poets’ tendency to ascribe angelic strength to their military hero the Duke of Marlborough—the chapter considers spiritual verse that offers angelic potential to all devout souls. Here the preoccupation is less with angel warfare than with the ecstatic possibilities of angel sex. Unifying these two movements is Isaac Watts, whose hitherto underappreciated place in the history of blank verse this chapter emphasizes.Less
This chapter surveys revisionist appropriations of Paradise Lost developed by Whig poets and theorists in the wake of the Battle of Blenheim (1704). Resisting the scholarly tendency to draw a great gulf between Milton and his immediate poetic successors, it argues that later writers continued to feel, as Milton felt, longing for an angel’s body. Such yearning became a feature of post-Miltonic blank verse. After first examining the Blenheim effect—Whig poets’ tendency to ascribe angelic strength to their military hero the Duke of Marlborough—the chapter considers spiritual verse that offers angelic potential to all devout souls. Here the preoccupation is less with angel warfare than with the ecstatic possibilities of angel sex. Unifying these two movements is Isaac Watts, whose hitherto underappreciated place in the history of blank verse this chapter emphasizes.
W. A. Sessions
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198186250
- eISBN:
- 9780191674457
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186250.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This book provides a comprehensive biography of Henry Howard, Poet Earl of Surrey. It combines historical scholarship with close readings of poetic texts and Tudor paintings to explore Surrey's ...
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This book provides a comprehensive biography of Henry Howard, Poet Earl of Surrey. It combines historical scholarship with close readings of poetic texts and Tudor paintings to explore Surrey's unique life. The first cousin of Queens Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard (and an influence on his young cousin the Princess Elizabeth), he was beheaded in 1547 on the orders of Henry VIII. Surrey embodied the contradictions of the courtier's role, through his standing both as a representative of the older nobility and heir to the greatest title outside the royal family, and as a poet who wrote innovative texts and created the most enduring poetic forms in England, the English sonnet and blank verse. More and more, critics and scholars have called for a more contemporary and wider assessment of his role in Tudor society. This book uses Surrey's redefinition of the role of Tudor courtier through his poems, his unique portraits, his military campaigns, and his political presence, to reveal how he created the first image in England of the Renaissance courtier. Surrey is also shown to embody the rather more modern image of the poet who writes and invents in the midst of radical violence.Less
This book provides a comprehensive biography of Henry Howard, Poet Earl of Surrey. It combines historical scholarship with close readings of poetic texts and Tudor paintings to explore Surrey's unique life. The first cousin of Queens Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard (and an influence on his young cousin the Princess Elizabeth), he was beheaded in 1547 on the orders of Henry VIII. Surrey embodied the contradictions of the courtier's role, through his standing both as a representative of the older nobility and heir to the greatest title outside the royal family, and as a poet who wrote innovative texts and created the most enduring poetic forms in England, the English sonnet and blank verse. More and more, critics and scholars have called for a more contemporary and wider assessment of his role in Tudor society. This book uses Surrey's redefinition of the role of Tudor courtier through his poems, his unique portraits, his military campaigns, and his political presence, to reveal how he created the first image in England of the Renaissance courtier. Surrey is also shown to embody the rather more modern image of the poet who writes and invents in the midst of radical violence.
Hélio J. S. Alves
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- August 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198754824
- eISBN:
- 9780191819841
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198754824.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, European Literature
This chapter surveys all printed Portuguese translations of Paradise Lost. The translational journey begins in the late eighteenth century, at a time when epic poetry was still the literary genre ...
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This chapter surveys all printed Portuguese translations of Paradise Lost. The translational journey begins in the late eighteenth century, at a time when epic poetry was still the literary genre that, most of all, represented and identified a nation, and blank verse had become, once more, a major means of poetic imitation and expression in Portuguese. The translational journey from neoclassical standards to Portuguese and Brazilian Romanticism through its last instantiation in 2014 courses through the various attempts at translating Paradise Lost and the influence of such attempts on the development of later literature, especially long poems. This chapter examines questions raised by Portuguese translators and their collaborators about epic poetry, blank verse, and the closely linked issues of religion, literary politics, and art.Less
This chapter surveys all printed Portuguese translations of Paradise Lost. The translational journey begins in the late eighteenth century, at a time when epic poetry was still the literary genre that, most of all, represented and identified a nation, and blank verse had become, once more, a major means of poetic imitation and expression in Portuguese. The translational journey from neoclassical standards to Portuguese and Brazilian Romanticism through its last instantiation in 2014 courses through the various attempts at translating Paradise Lost and the influence of such attempts on the development of later literature, especially long poems. This chapter examines questions raised by Portuguese translators and their collaborators about epic poetry, blank verse, and the closely linked issues of religion, literary politics, and art.
David Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300100716
- eISBN:
- 9780300129489
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300100716.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter examines a passage from “The Empirical Imagination” which marks a watershed in Wordsworth's career. This is the first time that Wordsworth turns to blank verse—his previous works mostly ...
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This chapter examines a passage from “The Empirical Imagination” which marks a watershed in Wordsworth's career. This is the first time that Wordsworth turns to blank verse—his previous works mostly constituting of either couplets or stanzas. Coincidentally, it is also in these lines that we find Wordsworth first use the plain, low register of English. Poems written later by Wordsworth that were influenced by James Thomson—such as “An Evening Walk”—would also draw heavily on plain English in long passages that would focus on giving a picturesque description. This chapter thus explores the means through which Wordsworth both began to discover and make use of plain English, and what possibly prompted this mode. Furthermore, it also explores Wordsworth's theory of imagination, a theory that was brought to his attention in his earlier works such as Lyrical Ballads.Less
This chapter examines a passage from “The Empirical Imagination” which marks a watershed in Wordsworth's career. This is the first time that Wordsworth turns to blank verse—his previous works mostly constituting of either couplets or stanzas. Coincidentally, it is also in these lines that we find Wordsworth first use the plain, low register of English. Poems written later by Wordsworth that were influenced by James Thomson—such as “An Evening Walk”—would also draw heavily on plain English in long passages that would focus on giving a picturesque description. This chapter thus explores the means through which Wordsworth both began to discover and make use of plain English, and what possibly prompted this mode. Furthermore, it also explores Wordsworth's theory of imagination, a theory that was brought to his attention in his earlier works such as Lyrical Ballads.
Ann Baynes Coiro
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198769774
- eISBN:
- 9780191822605
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769774.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Samson Agonistes engages with two heated Long Restoration debates: the use of rhymed verse in tragedy and the status of the tragic chorus. Each might seem pedantic now or merely technical, but they ...
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Samson Agonistes engages with two heated Long Restoration debates: the use of rhymed verse in tragedy and the status of the tragic chorus. Each might seem pedantic now or merely technical, but they were vitally important to Milton and his contemporaries. Indeed, Samson Agonistes’s chorus remains at the very heart of current (widely varied and fiercely contested) readings; our understanding of Milton’s rhyming chorus thus determines our overall understanding of this disturbing Restoration tragedy. This chapter reads Samson Agonistes’s chorus closely in order to understand the dramatic poem in contemporary terms.Less
Samson Agonistes engages with two heated Long Restoration debates: the use of rhymed verse in tragedy and the status of the tragic chorus. Each might seem pedantic now or merely technical, but they were vitally important to Milton and his contemporaries. Indeed, Samson Agonistes’s chorus remains at the very heart of current (widely varied and fiercely contested) readings; our understanding of Milton’s rhyming chorus thus determines our overall understanding of this disturbing Restoration tragedy. This chapter reads Samson Agonistes’s chorus closely in order to understand the dramatic poem in contemporary terms.
James Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199587230
- eISBN:
- 9780191820410
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587230.003.0028
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
A fundamental difference between the late medieval and the sixteenth-century humanist, philological translations of Virgil’s Aeneid consists of how the translator figures, or does not figure, as ...
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A fundamental difference between the late medieval and the sixteenth-century humanist, philological translations of Virgil’s Aeneid consists of how the translator figures, or does not figure, as reader, in the newly produced text. The medieval reception of Virgil explicitly recognizes its own historicity in the process of transmission; the humanist, philological reception would efface that historicity. Comparison of four late medieval/early modern translators of Virgil substantiates this argument: Chaucer, Caxton, Douglas, and Henry Howard Earl of Surrey. Surrey’s effacement is registered in poetic form, in his innovative adoption of blank verse, and his exploitation of both syntax and perspective. Even as he effaces himself, however, the soon-to-be ruined Surrey underlines the new, imperial disciplines of poetic making.Less
A fundamental difference between the late medieval and the sixteenth-century humanist, philological translations of Virgil’s Aeneid consists of how the translator figures, or does not figure, as reader, in the newly produced text. The medieval reception of Virgil explicitly recognizes its own historicity in the process of transmission; the humanist, philological reception would efface that historicity. Comparison of four late medieval/early modern translators of Virgil substantiates this argument: Chaucer, Caxton, Douglas, and Henry Howard Earl of Surrey. Surrey’s effacement is registered in poetic form, in his innovative adoption of blank verse, and his exploitation of both syntax and perspective. Even as he effaces himself, however, the soon-to-be ruined Surrey underlines the new, imperial disciplines of poetic making.
Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- August 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198754824
- eISBN:
- 9780191819841
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198754824.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies, European Literature
This chapter offers a history of Dutch translations of Paradise Lost, from the early eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. The focus is on the question of how Dutch translators have grappled ...
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This chapter offers a history of Dutch translations of Paradise Lost, from the early eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. The focus is on the question of how Dutch translators have grappled with two issues: the epic’s verse form, especially its lack of rhyme and syntactic idiosyncrasies; and its politico-religious dimension, its complex view of the relationship between earthly and divine authority, as well as its anti-predestinarian stance. The history of Paradise Lost in Dutch, which starts with the translation of Van Zanten in 1728, is characterized by an unresolved formal struggle with Milton’s blank verse, embraced unreservedly only in the early twentieth century, with translator Gutteling. Before 1900, the politico-religious dimension of Paradise Lost was at the fore for translators, yet this aspect of the poem has receded in prominence, with translators after 1900 presenting the poem instead as a timeless and self-contained work of literary genius.Less
This chapter offers a history of Dutch translations of Paradise Lost, from the early eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. The focus is on the question of how Dutch translators have grappled with two issues: the epic’s verse form, especially its lack of rhyme and syntactic idiosyncrasies; and its politico-religious dimension, its complex view of the relationship between earthly and divine authority, as well as its anti-predestinarian stance. The history of Paradise Lost in Dutch, which starts with the translation of Van Zanten in 1728, is characterized by an unresolved formal struggle with Milton’s blank verse, embraced unreservedly only in the early twentieth century, with translator Gutteling. Before 1900, the politico-religious dimension of Paradise Lost was at the fore for translators, yet this aspect of the poem has receded in prominence, with translators after 1900 presenting the poem instead as a timeless and self-contained work of literary genius.
Harriet Guest
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199686810
- eISBN:
- 9780191767067
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199686810.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, Women's Literature
The first chapter discusses Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson, poets and novelists whose work in the 1790s can be understood to be shaped by the competing demands of literary and commercial ambition, ...
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The first chapter discusses Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson, poets and novelists whose work in the 1790s can be understood to be shaped by the competing demands of literary and commercial ambition, and political conviction. Both women were liberal in their politics, and both became part of the social circle around Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin and Joseph Johnson which supported so many progressive writers in the metropolis and beyond in this period. But those who participated in the sociable exchanges of this group were by no means homogenous in their political opinions, and their views changed across time and in response to changing events and environments. The chapter focuses on the poetry that Smith and Robinson published in 1793, the year in which France was finally provoked into declaring war on Britain. It traces their reflections on and responses to the changing nature of the revolution in France, and the onset of conflict with Britain, which were complicated by their concerns for their own entangled reputations and careers as women and writers. Texts discussed include Smith’s long poem, The Emigrants (1793), Robinson’s sonnet to Smith, and her three poems, Sight, The Cavern of Woe, and Solitude (1793).Less
The first chapter discusses Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson, poets and novelists whose work in the 1790s can be understood to be shaped by the competing demands of literary and commercial ambition, and political conviction. Both women were liberal in their politics, and both became part of the social circle around Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin and Joseph Johnson which supported so many progressive writers in the metropolis and beyond in this period. But those who participated in the sociable exchanges of this group were by no means homogenous in their political opinions, and their views changed across time and in response to changing events and environments. The chapter focuses on the poetry that Smith and Robinson published in 1793, the year in which France was finally provoked into declaring war on Britain. It traces their reflections on and responses to the changing nature of the revolution in France, and the onset of conflict with Britain, which were complicated by their concerns for their own entangled reputations and careers as women and writers. Texts discussed include Smith’s long poem, The Emigrants (1793), Robinson’s sonnet to Smith, and her three poems, Sight, The Cavern of Woe, and Solitude (1793).
Adam Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780198723271
- eISBN:
- 9780191789779
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198723271.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter covers Landor’s career as a writer of theatrical drama, looking in detail at two of his plays: Andrea of Hungary (1839) and Count ...
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This chapter covers Landor’s career as a writer of theatrical drama, looking in detail at two of his plays: Andrea of Hungary (1839) and Count Julian (1812). Almost all Romantic and Victorian poets wrote verse-dramas in five-act, blank-verse, pastiche-Elizabethan mode. Most of these were designed to be read rather than performed, and many nineteenth-century readers not only read them but found pleasure in doing so. Few today find them so congenial. Landor generated dozens of both full-fledged verse-dramas and shorter ‘dramatic scenes’. Most of Landor’s dramatic writing is ineffective: sterile, maladroit, or actively clumsy. Nonetheless, this chapter argues that his best play—Count Julian—reaches a kind of greatness unlike anything else from its period. Although this might look perverse given the previous assertion, in fact Count Julian’s greatness as a play is connected with the same forces that vitiates Landor’s other experiments in this mode.Less
This chapter covers Landor’s career as a writer of theatrical drama, looking in detail at two of his plays: Andrea of Hungary (1839) and Count Julian (1812). Almost all Romantic and Victorian poets wrote verse-dramas in five-act, blank-verse, pastiche-Elizabethan mode. Most of these were designed to be read rather than performed, and many nineteenth-century readers not only read them but found pleasure in doing so. Few today find them so congenial. Landor generated dozens of both full-fledged verse-dramas and shorter ‘dramatic scenes’. Most of Landor’s dramatic writing is ineffective: sterile, maladroit, or actively clumsy. Nonetheless, this chapter argues that his best play—Count Julian—reaches a kind of greatness unlike anything else from its period. Although this might look perverse given the previous assertion, in fact Count Julian’s greatness as a play is connected with the same forces that vitiates Landor’s other experiments in this mode.
