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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... poetic pillory that , as it punishes , displays the poet's diagnosis of their disruptions of the social order . The pillory is , of course , an instrument of meaning . The mock - epic's poetic pillory attempts to take control over the ...
... poet's creative control and " imaginative freedom " from fact . Although it has become de rigueur to repeat Sidney's affirmation of the fictiveness of poetry as though that were his final word ( the poet , he says , " nothing affirmeth ...
... poet's power to speak the future because he can remember the past and see in small signs the true ( inner ... poets ' thematic designs and didactic in- tent . Although they will have to be supported in the remainder of this study ...
... poetic license . The problem arises because poetic license was understood chiefly as a matter of style , rhetoric . In his " Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence " of 1677 , Dryden defended the poet's right " of speaking things ...
... poet's li- cense includes his fable or fiction , critics consistently avoided the ques- tion of the mock - epic ... poetic justice in the Censor ( no . 36 , 12 January 1717 ) are just two of many examples . But because its satire ...
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 | |