The eighteenth-century British verse epistle / Bill Overton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Overton, Bill.

Contributor:

Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Epistolary poetry, English--History and criticism.

Epistolary poetry, English.

English poetry--18th century--History and criticism.

English poetry.

Physical Description:

xiii, 299 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Summary:

This is the first comprehensive study of the verse epistle in Britain during the eighteenth century, the period of its greatest importance. It offers a systematic definition of the form that attempts to do justice to its full variety, and it also provides convincing evidence of how popular a form it of epistle - including ethic, familiar, humorous, heroic, satrical and complimentary - it casts light both on well-known poems by such writers as Alexander Pope and Robert Burns, and on poems that are little known or not known at all. Among these are epistles by women such as Anne Finch, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Susanna Blamire, and by writers of both sexes from the labouring classes, such as Allan Ramsay, John Bancks and Mary Leapor.

Contents:

2 Frequency 32

3 Familiar and Humorous 66

4 Discursive 104

5 Heroic and Amatory 133

6 Satirical and Complimentary 168

Appendix 1 Verse Epistles in Dryden's Miscellany, Dodsley's and Pearch's Collections, and Lonsdale's Anthologies 197

Appendix 2 The Database of Epistles from Literature Online 209.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781403941701

140394170X

OCLC:

124026059