Literary Criticism and Aesthetics

This is mainly a note to myself, but if I were to write up a syllabus for a course on 18C aesthetics and literary criticism, I would include (so far):

• Aristotle's Poetics
• Longinus On the Sublime
• D'Avenant's Preface to Gondibert and Hobbes's response
• Howard's Preface to Four New Plays
• Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy and Heads of an Answer to Rymer
  
• Buckingham's The Rehearsal
• Rymer's Tragedies of the Last Age Consider'd
• Temple's Essay on the Gardens of Epicurus or Ancient and Modern Learning
• Pope
• Dennis' The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry and his critique of Pope's Rape of the Lock
• Addison and Steele's The Spectator (selections)
• Hume's Essays On Tragedy and The Standard of Taste
• Fielding's critique of Richardson and character in theatre
• Richardson's last chapter of Clarissa
  
• Akenside's Pleasure of the Imagination
• Johnson
• Burke's Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful
• Barbauld

Coolio. Back to reading...

18th Century Cat Lovers Unite!

The eighteenth century is rife with cat lovers. There's Christopher Smart and Samuel Johnson, to name a few...
Thomas Gray also loved his cat. Unfortunately it died in a tragic fish bowl accident. He wrote a fantastic poem about her death:

Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes

Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;
A favorite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.

What a way to die

I'm often surprised by what biographers say, but James Sambrook is well-known for his reputed biography on James Thomson. So, it comes as a shock to see what Thomson's contemporaries said about his father's death:

In autumn 1715 Thomson entered the College of Edinburgh. On 9 February 1716 his father died, probably of an apoplectic stroke, though local legend said he was struck by a ball of fire while carrying out an exorcism.

WTF? A satanic fireball? That's fucking awesome.

Aside from this, Sambrook also shares other interesting tidbits about Thomson:

Thomson was a keen and practised drinker.

His indolence was well known. It was said that, at Eastbury, he ate the ripe side of peaches hanging on the tree, without taking his hands from his pockets. Also that, at home in Richmond, he was found in bed one day at 2 p.m. by Charles Burney, the musicologist, who asked him why he was in bed at that hour and received the reply: ‘I had no motive to rise’

Little is known about Elizabeth Young. It seems that she was red-haired, and that, like Thomson, she spoke with a broad Scots brogue. Further testimony is contradictory: she is described on the one hand as a quick-tempered, harsh-tongued tomboy, on the other as a gentle-mannered, elegant-minded woman. There is general agreement, though, that her mother (the widow of a naval captain) was a coarse, vulgar woman, and that she opposed the match because Thomson's financial prospects were uncertain. Reportedly, she said to her daughter, ‘What! would you marry Thomson? He will make ballads and you will sing them’

It seems that the wake was as drunken as Thomson could have wished (see his Seasons, ‘Autumn’, 565–9) , for it is said that an unidentified clergyman ‘boasted, that at a supper after Thomson's funeral, he left Quin drunk under the table, whilst he was able to walk home’

Again. Fucking awesome. That's all there is to say.

Stop rhyming I mean it -- Anybody want a peanut?

This isn't really about rhyming per se, but it is about the popularity of the heroic couplet in the Eighteenth-Century. Here's a list of pro-heroic coupleters:

• Dryden (in poetry and drama, baby!)
  
• Denham's Cooper's Hill
• Pope
• Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes
• Goldsmith's The Deserted Village
• Chaucer (he's not 18C, but he's the enabler)

Now, people who don't like the heroic couplet in epic poetry:

• Matthew Prior

He claims he doesn't like it, yet it seems like he uses it... I'm probably wrong about this, but...

• rhyming couplet
• epic poetry
• iambic pentameter (the jury is still out on the iambic)
  

Hmmm...

PS- Okay, so I suppose that Prior's lines are enjambed instead of closed... but seriously, he's THIS close to being a heroic coupleter, it hurts!

Ouch!

Here's another interesting historical bitch slap. Nicholas Rowe, a loyal whig, tried to apply for a job with Oxford, a loyal Tory:

Oxford advised him to study Spanish, which Rowe did, in expectation of a possible foreign posting, only to be told by Oxford, when he reported his mastery of the language, ‘Then, Sir, I envy you the pleasure of reading “Don Quixote” in the original’.

Damn. That's gotta hurt.

The Introduction by Anne Finch

I really enjoyed reading this poem, so I'm sharing it with you:

Did I, my lines intend for publick view,
How many censures, wou'd their faults persue,
Some wou'd, because such words they do affect,
Cry they're insipid, empty, uncorrect.
And many, have attain'd, dull and untaught
The name of Witt, only by finding fault.
True judges, might condemn their want of witt,
And all might say, they're by a Woman writt.
Alas! a woman that attempts the pen,
Such an intruder on the rights of men,
Such a presumptuous Creature, is esteem'd,
The fault, can by no vertue be redeem'd.
They tell us, we mistake our sex and way;
Good breeding, fassion, dancing, dressing, play
Are the accomplishments we shou'd desire;
To write, or read, or think, or to enquire
Wou'd cloud our beauty, and exaust our time;
And interrupt the Conquests of our prime;
Whilst the dull mannage, of a servile house
Is held by some, our outmost art, and use.
Sure 'twas not ever thus, nor are we told
Fables, of Women that excell'd of old;
To whom, by the diffusive hand of Heaven
Some share of witt, and poetry was given.
On that glad day, on which the Ark return'd,
The holy pledge, for which the Land had mourn'd,
The joyfull Tribes, attend itt on the way,
The Levites do the sacred Charge convey,
Whilst various Instruments, before itt play;
Here, holy Virgins in the Concert joyn,
The louder notes, to soften, and refine,
And with alternate verse, compleat the Hymn Devine.
Loe! the yong Poet, after Gods own heart,
By Him inspired, and taught the Muses Art,
Return'd from Conquest, a bright Chorus meets,
That sing his slayn ten thousand in the streets.
In such loud numbers they his acts declare,
Proclaim the wonders, of his early war,
That Saul upon the vast applause does frown,
And feels, itts mighty thunder shake the Crown.
What, can the threat'n'd Judgment now prolong?
Half of the Kingdom is already gone;
The fairest half, whose influence guides the rest,
Have David's Empire, o're their hearts confess't.
A Woman here, leads fainting Israel on,
She fights, she wins, she tryumphs with a song,
Devout, Majestick, for the subject fitt,
And far above her arms, exalts her witt,
Then, to the peacefull, shady Palm withdraws,
And rules the rescu'd Nation with her Laws.
How are we fal'n, fal'n by mistaken rules?
And Education's, more than Nature's fools,
Debarr'd from all improve-ments of the mind,
And to be dull, expected and dessigned;
And if some one, would Soar above the rest,
With warmer fancy, and ambition press't,
So strong, th' opposing faction still appears,
The hopes to thrive, can ne're outweigh the fears,
Be caution'd then my Muse, and still retir'd;
Nor be dispis'd, aiming to be admir'd;
Conscious of wants, still with contracted wing,
To some few freinds, and to thy sorrows sing;
For groves of Lawrell, thou wert never meant;
Be dark enough thy shades, and be thou there content.

One more for the pro-prosers...

Joseph Addison discusses how blank verse is ideal for Tragedy because it is often heard in normal English discourse. He then states,

I am therefore very much offended when I see a Play in Rhyme; which is as absurd in English, as a tragedy of Hexameters would have been in Greek or Latin.

Dryden, looks like you're going DOWN!

He may be a genius, but he's also a jerk

John Dennis is an early genius of 18C literary criticism. But, he despised Alexander Pope and attacked him on a very personal level. He would claim that Pope's writing were as natural as his physical deformity. As if this weren't bad enough, Dennis also sued his own mother:

Dennis brought a chancery suit against his mother. She had defrauded him, he claimed, of the interest on his uncle's bequest. Her son had become an unfilial spendthrift, his mother countered. It is likely that the family arrived at an out-of-court settlement.

Who sues their own mom???
He then proceeded to take the "Grand Tour" of Europe with one of his friends in 1688.

His literary criticism is genius, but there's only so much genius that can account for being that kind of jerk.

As if they didn't know what would happen

George Farquhar is yet another Restoration playwright who got bamboozled into marriage by a poor widow and died shortly after. First George Etherege, and now this guy. Come on, people. You write, act, and read all of the same materials. Wouldn't you think you would know a cunning widow from a rich one? Sheesh!