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
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... narrative form . The effects that mock - epic aims for , which only the most interested account could think of as moral instruc- tion , have two related poles . One is personal and particular . The mock- epic's personal satire punishes ...
... narrative with inev- itable and reprehensible consequences — for civilization and the state . But that tie is one of many , not only to epic but to a number of Augustan genres . The mock - epic is often said to occupy the place among ...
... narrative form and didactic end . That relation is also key to the mock - epic , as Augustan narrative forms moved from epic's preceptual fables to , on the one hand , the progres- sive narrative of the novel and , on the other , the ...
... narrative is the story of this chapter . Precept and Example , Allegory and Action When in 1699 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 ...
... narrative and new forms with new social agendas . 10 Their struggles were no less difficult than those of the mock - epic poets , but they are harder for us to see because our own lit- erary experience is dominated by the genre created ...
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 | |