Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary Culture, 1681-1714 PDF
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Poetry and the Creation of a 1681 1714 Whig Literary Culture – This page intentionally left blank Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary 1681 1714 Culture – ABIGAIL WILLIAMS 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein OxfordNewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan SouthKorea Poland Portugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork (cid:1)AbigailWilliams2005 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2005 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Williams,Abigail. PoetryandthecreationofaWhigliteraryculture,1681–1714/AbigailWilliams. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. 1.Englishpoetry–18thcentury–Historyandcriticism.2.Politicsandliterature–GreatBritain –History–18thcentury.3.Englishpoetry–Earlymodern,1500–1700–Historyandcriticism. 4.WhigParty(GreatBritain)–History–18thcentury. 5.GreatBritain–Intellectuallife–18thcentury.I.Title. PR555.P6W552005 821’.509921342–dc22 2004026057 ISBN0-19-925520-2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 TypesetbyKolamInformationServicesPvt.Ltd,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby BiddlesLtd, King’sLynn,Norfolk Inmemoryof my father, Shaun Williams Acknowledgements Ibeganthis projectwiththeassistanceofagrantfromtheAHRB,and Icouldnothavefinisheditwithoutthetimeandmoneygiventomeby theOxfordEnglishFacultyandStPeter’sCollege.Beyondthisgenerous institutional support, I have personal debts of thanks. At the various stagesofthebook’sdevelopmentIhavebeenencouragedandguidedby Christine Gerrard, Isabel Rivers, and David Womersley. I am also very grateful to all the other friends and colleagues who have read sections and drafts of the book: SharonAchinstein, Matthew Beaumont, Jennie Barbour, Eleanor Collins, Brean Hammond, Mark Knights, Myfanwy Lloyd, Steve Pincus, Adam Rounce, Blair Worden, and Brian Young. I hope I have done some justice to their astute and constructive comments. Thanks are also due to those who have shared their unpublished research with me, in particular Ros Ballaster, Emma Jay, Nick von Maltzahn, Hannah Smith, and all the participants in the ‘Cultures of Whiggism’seminarheldinOxfordinApril2001.Thisisundoubtedlya better book for the numerous discussions at conferences and seminars that have promptedme to rethink various aspects of myarguments. And finally, to my friends and family, and especially Giles—thank you for yoursupportand companionship. Contents List of abbreviations viii Introduction: Rereading Whig poetry 1 1. The Tory critique of Whig literature 22 2. Moderation, fanaticism, and ‘the people’ 1681–1688 56 3. Legitimacy and the warrior king 1688–1702 93 4. Poetic warfare 1702–1714 135 5. The sublime and the liberty of writing 173 6. Patronage and the public writer in Whig literary culture 204 Conclusion: Whig afterlives 241 Biographical appendix 247 Bibliography 258 Index 296 Abbreviations Dennis,CriticalWorks TheCriticalWorksofJohnDennis,ed.E.N.Hooker,2 vols.(Baltimore,Md.:JohnsHopkinsUniversityPress, 1939–43). Dryden,Works TheWorksofJohn Dryden, ed.E.N. Hookeretal.,20 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif.: University of CaliforniaPress,1965–2000). POAS George deF. Lord et al., (eds.), 7 vols. (New Haven, Conn.:YaleUniversityPress,1963–75).PoemsonAVairs ofState:AugustanSatiricalVerse1660–1714. Shadwell,Works TheCompleteWorksofThomasShadwell,ed.Montague Summers,5vols.(London:Fortune,1927). TE The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt et al., 11 vols. (London: Methuen, 1939–69). Introduction: Rereading Whig poetry In1694Joseph Addison, ayoung scholar atMagdalenCollege,Oxford, publishedahistoryofEnglishpoetry,AnAccountoftheGreatestEnglish Poets. Having progressed through Chaucer, Spenser, Cowley, Milton, Waller, Dryden, and Congreve, Addison arrives at the present day, and hisWnalverseparagraphproclaimsthelatestsuccessortothetradition: I’mtir’dwithrhiming,andwou’dfaingiveo’er, Butjusticestilldemandsonelabourmore: ThenobleMontagueremainsunnam’d, Forwit,forhumour,andforjudgmentfam’d.1 Foratwenty-Wrst-centuryreaderthisisasurprisingmoment.Addison’s ‘greatest English poets’ are the same as those found in countless other canonical histories of English poetry, until we reach the last named author. After all the familiar praise of Spenser and Dryden, Addison presentsapoetthatwehaveneverread,orevenheardof.Theunlikely WgureofCharlesMontagu,laterEarlofHalifax,ishailedastheculmin- ationofthenation’sliteraryachievement.Montaguwastheauthorofa recent panegyric on William III’s victory over James II at the Battle of the Boyne entitled An Epistle to the Right Honourable Charles, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex (1690). Addison does not seem to anticipate our ignorance of his last ‘great English poet’, indeed he describes him as ‘fam’d’forwit,humour,andjudgement.NordoesAddisonpresenthis admiration of Montagu as purely personal or idiosyncratic. A little researchinto the reception of theEpistle revealsthat hewas expressing an opinion that was widely held in the 1690s. The Epistle became something of an ars poetica for a generation of writers in the post- Revolution period. It was widely praised as embodying the ‘wonderful Wre’and‘Raptures’thatweretheveryessenceofpoeticgenius,andwas 1 JosephAddison,AnAccountoftheGreatestEnglishPoets(1694),inTheMiscellaneous WorksofJosephAddison,ed.A.C.Guthkelch,3vols.(London:Bell,1914),i.34–5.Further linereferencesinthetextaretothisedition.
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