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The Metrical Tale in XVIII-Century England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The poets of the early nineteenth century are thought of primarily as lyrists; and yet, in the case of all the leading figures, especially the two most popular, Scott and Byron, the bulk of their work is narrative, and for the most part metrical tales. These narratives vary widely in subject-matter and atmosphere: sometimes, as in Crabbe, the purpose is simply to tell a realistic story; sometimes as in Wordsworth, to point a moral or adorn a bit of autobiography; sometimes, as in Coleridge and Byron, to give the reader a new and exotic shudder; or, as in Scott and Keats, to delight with the mysterious and forgotton past; or, as in Shelley, to inculcate a social doctrine. At first sight, this prevalence of narrative seems to be an utter departure from the preceding hundred years, in which satire and didacticism are supposed to have extinguished the versified tale; but a closer examination, especially of minor writers, shows that the eighteenth century had an unbroken tradition of such writings. The existence of this tradition has generally escaped attention, partly because the works of such minor poets are hard to find, and partly because the genre was of rather dubious repute, being akin to the “ballad” of the time, and was hardly included in the literary “kinds” generally accepted by critics and theorists.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937
References
page 390 note 1 In the eighteenth century, the term “ballad” may refer to broadside verse of a miscellaneous sort, or to such stanzas, sung in the streets or in a ballad opera, as might have appeared on broadsides during the preceding century; and, with the printing of such pieces more and more in volumes and their consequent acceptance as literature of a sort and with the increasing vogue of “primitive” popular balladry, the term grew more general and wider in meaning. Ballads might even be “lyrical,” a reminiscence of their application to the lyrics in “ballad opera.” Some, like the Ancient Mariner, suggest the tradition of popular balladry; and others, like certain of Wordsworth's pieces, suggest rather the broadside tradition and the “ballads” of Prior. The epithet was generally not one of distinction until the latter part of the century.
page 390 note 2 See Eighteenth Century Æsthetics: A Bibliography (Heidelberg, 1931), compiled by the present writer, Part iv; and R. P. Bond, English Burlesque Poetry, 1700–1750 (Cambridge, 1932).
page 390 note 3 H. Pemberton, Observations on Poetry (London, 1738).
page 390 note 4 J. B. du Bos, Critical Reflections (London, 1748), ed. princ.? 1719.
page 390 note 5 C. Batteux, A Course of Belles Lettres (London, 1761), ed. princ. 1746. He seems to recognize only two sorts of narrative, epic and fable.
page 390 note 6 [P. Estève], L'Esprit des Beaux Arts (Paris, 1753).
page 390 note 7 [J. G. Cooper], Letters concerning Taste (London, 1757).
page 390 note 8 The Beauties of Poetry Display'd (London, 1757).
page 390 note 9 E. Burke, Philosophical Inquiry into the Sublime (London, 1757).
page 390 note 10 Rambler, No. iv. Of course Johnson's knowledge of such pieces is very incomplete, for he quite disregarded the realistic species.
page 390 note 11 [H. Home, Lord Kames], Elements of Criticism (Edinburgh, 1763).
page 390 note 12 John Brown, History of the Rise and Progress of Poetry through its Several Species (London, 1764).
page 390 note 13 R. Hurd, Letters on Chivalry and Romance (London, 1762).
page 390 note 14 J. Aikin, Essays on Song Writing (London, 1772).
page 390 note 15 J. Walters, Poems (Oxford, 1780). See Preface to The Bodleian Library.
page 390 note 16 This extension of the term to include the romances and the Orlando Furioso was of course common in the Renaissance.
page 390 note 17 W. Hayley, Essay on Epic Poetry (London, 1782), Epistle III, line 127, note v.
page 390 note 18 H. Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric (London, 1783).
page 390 note 19 J. Beattie, Dissertations on Fable and Romance (London, 1783), 505 et seq.
page 390 note 20 See Aristotelian μιμησις in Eighteenth Century England by the present writer, PMLA, xxxvi, 372 et seq.
page 390 note 21 E. Stephens, Poems, 1759.
page 390 note 22 See English Poets, ed. Chalmers (London, 1810), ix, 284.
page 390 note 23 [B.] Morrice, The Amour of Venus (London, 1732). Taken from the Venus and Adonis story in Ovid.
page 390 note 24 “Gregory Gander,” Poetical Tales (London, 1778).
page 390 note 25 Chalmers, op. cit., ix, 296 et seq.
page 390 note 26 Carteret, Miscellaneous Poems (London, 1752).
page 390 note 27 Chalmers, op. cit., xi, 301.
page 390 note 28 W. Jones, Works (London, 1807), ii, 147 et seq.
page 390 note 29 [E. Cartwright], Armine and Elvira (London, 1771).
page 390 note 30 [T. Parnell] Essay on the Different Poetic Stiles [sic] (London, 1713), p. 18.
page 390 note 31 [J. Newberry] Art of Poetry on a New Plan (London, 1762), i, 235 et seq.
page 390 note 32 E. g. the fourth book of W. Mason's English Garden and of J. Foot's Penseroso.
page 390 note 33 The Circle of the Sciences (London, 1776), iv, 144. Largely extracted from Newberry's Art of Poetry.
page 390 note 34 The Adventurer, no. xviii (Jan. 6, 1753).
page 390 note 35 J. Robinson, Poems (London, 1770), pp. 50, 81.
page 390 note 36 E.g. no. xc.
page 390 note 37 Morrice, Country-House (Dublin, 1735), p. 6.
page 390 note 38 [J. Robinson] op. cit., 49 pp. et seq.
page 390 note 39 G. Jeffreys, Father Francis and Sister Constance (London, 1736).
page 390 note 40 S. Duck, Alrick and Isabel (London, 1740).
page 390 note 41 See line 740 et seq. Pope adds this statement of “truth” to the Chaucerian original. See lines 2350–2351 in Skeat's edition.
page 390 note 42 Chalmers, op. cit., xi, 328.
page 390 note 43 Poems by Eminent Ladies (London, 1755).
page 390 note 44 Cf. Lubin, reviewed in the Monthly, lxxiv, 69; and the Scarborough Miscellany (London, 1732), p. 40.
page 390 note 45 D. Bellamy, Back-gammon [c. 1710].
page 390 note 46 J. Byrom, Miscellaneous Poems (Manchester, 1773), i, 10.
page 390 note 47 Even in seventeenth-century France, La Fontaine was moved to offer in his preface to the Contes et Nouvelles some apology for their Rabelaisianism.
page 390 note 48 See J. Trapp, Prœlectiones Poeticœ (London, 1736), i, 160.
page 390 note 49 Frogs and Mice, tr. Parnell (London, 1717), Preface.
page 390 note 50 [T. Parnell], Essay on the Different Poetic Stiles (London, 1713), Preface.
page 390 note 51 G. Keate, The Distressed Poet (London, 1787), pp. 43–44.
page 390 note 52 G. Keate, Works (London, 1781), i, 1.
page 390 note 53 [J. Newberry], Art of Poetry on a New Plan (London, 1762), i, 235 et seq.
page 390 note 54 E. Moore, The Trial of Selim.
page 390 note 55 The Night-Walker Reclaim'd, line 98.
page 390 note 56 Cf. R. D. Havens, The Influence of Milton on English Poetry (Cambridge, 1922), p. 439 et seq.
page 390 note 57 Annual Register (1798), p. 426.
page 390 note 58 See the present writer, “Poetry and Music in Eighteenth Century Æsthetics,” Eng. St. lxvi, 70 et seq.