Politeness and Poetry in the Age of PopeInterest in politeness in the eighteenth century is shown to reflect anxiety about social change and indicate a search for guidelines in a newly commercialized society. Evident is the dilemma of poets such as Parnell, Prior, Swift, Gay, and Pope. |
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Page 11
... elite is a widespread one.3 It goes far beyond simple propaganda on the part of a ruling class , though it can obviously include that . A time - honored system develops , with unconscious as well as conscious elements , a widely ...
... elite is a widespread one.3 It goes far beyond simple propaganda on the part of a ruling class , though it can obviously include that . A time - honored system develops , with unconscious as well as conscious elements , a widely ...
Page 12
... elite to rule . Our social " betters " are pre- sented as our moral betters as well . Aristotle wrote that " the more nobly born are more fully citizens than the non - noble , good birth being held in esteem in every country ; and the ...
... elite to rule . Our social " betters " are pre- sented as our moral betters as well . Aristotle wrote that " the more nobly born are more fully citizens than the non - noble , good birth being held in esteem in every country ; and the ...
Page 13
... elite . The idea of learn- ing as the only true gentility was strong in the early Renaissance , but the debate really becomes the focus for the struggles and then the accommodations between an older aristocracy and a newer elite of ...
... elite . The idea of learn- ing as the only true gentility was strong in the early Renaissance , but the debate really becomes the focus for the struggles and then the accommodations between an older aristocracy and a newer elite of ...
Page 15
... elite that is no longer primarily differentiated by birth , whatever its aristocratic elements . The metaphor also unavoidably seems to imply an attention to surfaces - one thinks of Dickens's socialites , the Ve- neerings perhaps and ...
... elite that is no longer primarily differentiated by birth , whatever its aristocratic elements . The metaphor also unavoidably seems to imply an attention to surfaces - one thinks of Dickens's socialites , the Ve- neerings perhaps and ...
Page 17
... elite is , as Lawrence Stone has shown , one of the most marked social developments of the whole Tudor period . If the aristocracy and the greater landed gentry had the central power , wealth , and status , this wider elite is still ...
... elite is , as Lawrence Stone has shown , one of the most marked social developments of the whole Tudor period . If the aristocracy and the greater landed gentry had the central power , wealth , and status , this wider elite is still ...
Contents
17 | |
30 | |
Alike Fantastick If Too New or Old Politeness and the Dilemma of Traditionalist Poets | 43 |
Softest Manners Gentlest Arts The Polite Verse of Thomas Parnell | 55 |
A Grace a Manner a Decorum Matthew Priors Polite Mystique | 70 |
John Gays Due Civilities The Ironies of Politeness | 86 |
A Kind of Artificial Good Sense Swift and the Forms of Politeness | 102 |
To Form the Manners Pope and the Poetry of Mores | 116 |
Notes | 135 |
Select Bibliography | 149 |
Index | 161 |
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Common terms and phrases
Addison and Steele Alexander Pope amateur Arbuthnot aristocratic attitudes Beggar's Opera Ben Jonson birth bourgeois C. J. Rawson Century Christian cited Clarendon Press classical commercial convention corrupt court wits courtly Criticism cultural decorum demystified despite developments Dunciad E. P. Thompson Edited Edmund Waller Eighteenth elements elite England English epic Essays ethos example fashionable Gay's Gentleman gentry genuine ideal idleness imagery J. C. D. Clark John John Gay Jonson laureate poet leisure literary Literature London manners Matthew Prior McKeon mock-heroic mode modern politeness moral norms obviously occasional verse old ideology Oxford panegyrical Parnell's pastoral patronage period poem poet poet's Poetics polish polite sentiment praise present Prior Prose quasi-aristocratic religious Renaissance Restoration court revealing role satire scepticism Scriblerian secular sense social society sprezzatura status stylishness Swift Thomas Parnell tion tone true University Press upper classes virtue vols W. A. Speck Whig whole women write
Popular passages
Page 123 - And speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence: Some positive, persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you, with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a Critic on the last.
Page 76 - The women wretched, false the men : And when, these certain ills to shun, She would to thy embraces run ; Receive her with extended arms : Seem more delighted with her charms : Wait on her to the park and play : Put on good humour ; make her gay : Be to her virtues very kind ; Be to her faults a little blind ; Let all her ways be unconfin'd ; And clap your padlock — on her mind.
Page 86 - Through the whole piece you may observe such a similitude of manners in high and low life, that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable vices) the fine gentlemen imitate the gentlemen of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the fine gentlemen.- Had the Play remain'd, as I at first intended, it would have carried a most excellent moral.
Page 77 - ABSENT from thee, I languish still; Then ask me not, when I return? The straying fool 'twill plainly kill To wish all day, all night to mourn. Dear ! from thine arms then let me fly, That my fantastic mind may prove The torments it deserves to try That tears my fixed heart from my love. When, wearied with a world of woe...
Page 129 - I found him close with Swift— Indeed? no doubt (Cries prating Balbus) something will come out.' 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will: 'No, such a genius never can lie still'; And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first lampoon Sir Will or Bubo makes.
Page 67 - O'er the long lake and midnight ground !) It sends a peal of hollow groans, Thus speaking from among the bones. ' When men my scythe and darts supply, How great a king of fears am I ! They view me like the last of things : They make, and then they dread, my stings.
Page 29 - ... would indeed be a wild project; it would be to dig up foundations; to destroy at one blow all the wit, and half the learning of the kingdom; to break the entire frame and constitution of things; to ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts, exchanges, and shops into deserts...
Page 27 - Well-order'd home man's best delight to make ; And by submissive wisdom, modest skill, With every gentle care-eluding art. To raise the virtues, animate the bliss, And sweeten all the toils of human life: This be the female dignity, and praise.
Page 61 - I'll lift my voice, and tune my string, And thee, great Source of Nature, sing. The sun that walks his airy way, To light the world, and give the day ; The moon that shines with...
Page 29 - ... all the wit, and half the learning of the kingdom; to break the entire frame and constitution of things; to ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts, exchanges, and shops into deserts; and would be full as absurd as the proposal of Horace, where he advises the Romans all in a body to leave their city, and seek a new seat in some remote part of the world, by way of cure for the corruption of their manners.