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Poetic Hero-Worship in the Late Eighteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
To be perfectly accurate, this title should be considerably longer; for the late eighteenth century will be represented by only its last decade and its hero-worshippers by those remarkably misguided bards who gained an immortality of sorts by publishing their verses in the poets' corners of contemporary magazines. Apparently the desire to write poetry had then become quite uncontrollable in the breasts of most literate Englishmen, and practically everything so written could be sent off to certain acceptance by obliging periodicals. Yet some poets were still timorous enough to feel the need of authority and wise enough to find it by writing either tributary stanzas to generally admired authors or acknowledged imitations of their more familiar compositions. Others, more generous, did the same thing to express their unbounded enthusiasm; and a few even wrote in reproach and bitterness of spirit when certain contemporary authors failed to satisfy them. Whatever their motive, their poetry remains valuable as evidence of the taste of the time. And, because the process of making over the gods in one's own image, or rather in the image of what one would like to be, is always instructive, and because at this particular time the image was so distinctly that of the average man, become more or less articulate, the opportunity for research and generalization becomes irresistibly alluring.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933
References
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