Cherish your memories.
Tag: 18th century poets
Daffy-down-dilly is come up to town, / In her yellow petticoat and her green gown.
These lines are a heroic quatrain in more than one sense. Such pure stoicism is rare in English.
I guess here’s what you might get if no-one seems good enough.
The form of this Wordsworthian sonnet refers back to 16th and 17th century sonnets, much like the reference to Proteus recalls Milton’s description of the Old Man of the Sea, and Triton Spenser’s figure of the sea-god.
A Bard used to be much more than a mere wordsmith.
Trees aren’t just still standing timber. Not even poplars.
William Collins (1721–1759) was a gifted and learned poet, but had to content with unfavorable circumstances and work amid uncongenial surroundings. Melancholy was his companion, and by the time he died, he was classified as insane.
Alexander Pope was most successful as a translator of Homer, but his reputation stems from his genius as a satirist, mostly. He was also among the finest epistolary poets in English.
