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Selected Poems (2e)John GayEdited by Marcus Walsh
Categories: 17th Century, 18th Century
Imprint: Fyfield Books Edition: 2nd Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback 2e (96 pages) (Pub. Apr 2003) 9781857547023 Out of Stock
thou Trivia, Goddess, aid my Song,
Thro' spacious Streets conduct thy Bard along: By thee transported, I securely stray Where winding Alleys lead the doubtful Way, The silent Court, and op'ning Square explore, And long perplexing Lanes untrod before. (from Trivia, Or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London)
John Gay (1685-1732) was part of the 'association of wits' that included Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. But though Gay's exposure of weakness and folly is no less acute than theirs, his wit is characterised by a benign and ironic sense of the fallibility of humankind. Gay is a great master of parody and pastiche, and the quality of Gay's poetry, as Marcus Walsh points out in his introduction, lies in its 'sense of verbal play'. The ironic appreciation of 'life as it is' that makes his Beggar's Opera enduringly popular is present in his poetry. Trivia, which Gay's biographer called 'the greatest poem on London in English literature', teems with the chaotic energy of the eighteenth-century city, while The Shepherd's Week is a pastoral of comic realism. This selection enables Gay's poetry to take its place alongside his drama as one of the most distinctive reflections of his age.
Table of Contents
Introduction - Marcus Walsh Chronology of Life and Works - Marcus Walsh Select Booklist - Marcus Walsh Wine The Shepherd's Week The Proeme Monday; or, the Squabble Wedmesday; or, The Dumps Saturday; or, The flights Trivia Book I Book III Eclogues The Birth of the Squire The Tea-Table Fables 1727 Introduction to the Fables - Marcus Walsh Fable X: the Elephant and the Buttleflies Fable XXIV: The Butterfly and the Snail Fable XXIX: The Fox at the Point of Death Fable XXXIX: The Father and Jupiter Fable XL:The Two Monkeys Fable XLII: The Jugglers Fable L: The Hare and Many Friends Fables, 1738 Fable I: The Dog and the Fox Fable II: the Vultur, the Sparrow, and other Birds Fable XVI: The Ravens, the Sexton, and the Earth-Worm My Own Epitaph Notes - Marcus Walsh |
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