The Poet and His AudienceCUP Archive, 1984 M07 5 - 198 pages How far, and in what respects, is a poet's work influenced by the kind of audience for which he writes? The question is crucial to our understanding of how great poems came to be written, yet it has rarely been addressed in a systematic study. In this fascinating and illuminating book Ian Jack has chosen six major poets - Dryden, Pope, Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, and Yeats - and has traced the career of each to discover the nature and the extent of their readers' influence on their poetry. He shows that poets living in different periods and different cultural milieux addressed themselves to very differently constituted audiences (though all tended to have a close circle of highly sensitive friends on whom they could first test their work in private), and indicates how their need to adapt to the prevailing conditions shaped the nature of their poetry. |
Contents
Acknowledgements page | 1 |
No mans slave | 32 |
Too sincere a poet | 61 |
The unacknowledged legislator | 90 |
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Abbey Theatre Absalom and Achitophel addressed admired Alexander Pope appeared audience bookseller Byron Canto career Cenci century Charles Chaucer Childe Harold's Pilgrimage circle copies Correspondence of Swift Court criticism dedication described Don Juan doubt drama Dryden Dublin Dunciad early edition elegy England English epic Epistle Essay fact friends genius George Giaour Heritage Horace Ibid Idylls important interest Ireland Irish John John Dryden King Lady later Laureate Leigh Hunt Letters lines literary London Lord Lord Byron Mac Flecknoe Mary Shelley Maud Maud Gonne moral Murray Murray's nation never Ollier play poem poet poet's poetic poetry political Pope Pope's praise preface printed prose published Queen Queen Mab readers reading public realise reference remarkable reminded satire seems Shelley Shelley's songs soon stanzas taste tells Tennyson theatre told translation understand verse vols volume W.B. Yeats William Allingham women write written wrote young