Designs on Truth: The Poetics of the Augustan Mock-EpicPenn State Press, 1. sept 1992 - 256 pages Designs on Truth provides a reinterpretation of Augustan poetry, not as works to be defended before the court of Matthew Arnold and the Romantic tradition but as works that examine the rich relationships among text, culture, and world. In Designs on Truth, Gregory Colomb identifies the characteristics of the mock-epic and argues that the form had developed formal expectations. In making this argument, he explains the intentions of the writers of mock-epics, and expands our conception of the interest and significance of such poems. By demonstrating how these poems are supported by the genre's poetics, he brings out ways these poems differ from other &"Augustan&" poems such as the Horatian epistles that are often discussed with them. Designs on Truth puts into question the distinction between history and poetry in the mock-epic, examining it at three levels of poetic structure: fable (global narrative structure), and portraits (characterological narrative structure). Focusing chiefly on the mock-epic's representations in terms of class and &"kind,&" this study returns historical particulars to the central role that the poets had always given them and seeks to understand how they are made poetic. Designs on Truth shows how the poems themselves subvert any easy distinction between historical and poetic particulars. This often philosophical genre is itself a reconsideration of the role of reference (fact) and judgment (value) in representation. This study shows how representation and judgment work in the mock-epic, and how together they stand at the heart of the dominant Augustan poetic. Colomb also provides new readings of the mock-epic, including the first comprehensive reading of The Dispensary since the eighteenth century. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 82
... Garth created a poetic form that , refined by the most ac- complished poetic craftsman of the eighteenth century , became the par- adigmatic genre of high Augustan poetry . This book tells the story of that genre . It is not a story of ...
... Garth's long unread Dispensary and Pope's Dunciad , poems that come closest to exemplifying the model of the mock - epic . The influences of Garth's forgotten poem on Pope's mas- terpiece are extensive , essential , and largely ...
... ( Garth's last revision ) ; it also includes A Compleat Key to the Dispensary and lists all lines removed from earlier versions . Frank Ellis has produced an excellent edition of Garth's first corrected text ( 1699 ) , including helpful ...
... Garth turned to poetry to judge and punish the enemies of the Royal College of Physicians , he could draw on a number of mod- els . Epic connections were easy to find . His mock - heroic framework he borrowed almost whole from Boileau ...
... Garth manage to circumvent such longstanding author- ity ? By dint of his unique circumstances : Garth was no poet and need not be responsible to the tradition as one with more serious poetic am- bitions might . He was free , not so ...
Contents
Prologue | 33 |
Naming Names | 35 |
Dullness by Its Proper Name 3 | 59 |
Urban Gravitation | 79 |
Ranging Afield | 95 |
Prologue | 119 |
From Caricature to Portraiture 6 | 129 |
Dishonourable Confederacies | 145 |
A Taxonomy of Dunces 8 | 163 |
A Succession of Monarchs 9 | 183 |
Epilogue | 207 |
209 | |
219 | |