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Hudibras
''Hudibras'' is a vigorous satirical poem, written in a mock-heroic style by Samuel Butler (1613–1680), and published in three parts in 1663, 1664 and 1678. The action is set in the last years of the Interregnum, around 1658–60, immediately before the restoration of Charles II as king in May 1660. The story shows Hudibras, a knight and colonel in the Parliamentary army, being regularly defeated, sometimes by the skills and courage of women, and ends with a witty and detailed declaration that women are superior to men. ''Hudibras'' is notable for its longevity: from the 1660s, it was more or less always in print, from many different publishers and editors, till the period of the First World War (see below). Apart from Byron’s masterpiece ''Don Juan'' (1819–24), there are few English verse satires of this length (over 11,000 lines) that have had such a long and influential life in print. The satire “delighted the royalists but was less an attack on the puritans than a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Butler (poet)
Samuel Butler (baptized 14 February 1613 – 25 September 1680) was an English poet and satirist. He is remembered now chiefly for a long satirical poem titled ''Hudibras''. Biography Samuel Butler was born in Strensham, Worcestershire, and was the son of a farmer and churchwarden, also named Samuel. His date of birth is unknown, but there is documentary evidence for the date of his baptism of 14 February. The date of Butler's baptism is given as 8 February by Treadway Russell Nash in his 1793 edition of ''Hudibras''. Nash had already mentioned Butler in his ''Collections for a History of Worcestershire'' (1781), and perhaps because the latter date seemed to be a revised account, it has been repeated by many writers and editors. However, The parish register of Strensham records under the year 1612: "Item was christened Samuell Butler the sonne of Samuell Butler the xiiijth of February anno ut supra". Lady Day, 25 March, was New Year's Day in England at the time, so the year o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skimmington
Charivari (, , , alternatively spelled shivaree or chivaree and also called a skimmington) was a European and North American folk custom in which a mock parade was staged through a community accompanied by a discordant mock serenade. Since the crowd aimed to make as much noise as possible by beating on pots and pans or anything that came to hand these parades are often referred to as rough music. Parades were of three types. In the first, and generally most violent form, a wrongdoer or wrongdoers might be dragged from their home or place of work and paraded by force through a community. In the process they were subject to the derision of the crowd, they might be pelted and frequently a victim or victims were dunked at the end of the proceedings. A safer form involved a neighbour of the wrongdoer impersonating the victim whilst being carried through the streets. The impersonator was obviously not themselves punished and often cried out or sang ribald verses mocking the wrongdoer. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hudibrastic
Hudibrastic is a type of English verse named for Samuel Butler's ''Hudibras'', published in parts from 1663 to 1678.Cox, Michael, editor, ''The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature'', Oxford University Press, 2004, For the poem, Butler invented a mock-heroic verse structure. Description Instead of pentameter, the lines were written in iambic tetrameter. The rhyme scheme is the same as in heroic verse (aa, bb, cc, dd, etc.), but Butler used frequent feminine rhyme for humor.Baldick, Christopher (1996).Hudibrastic verse in ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms''. Oxford Reference Online (subscription required), Oxford University Press. Retrieved on February 27, 2007. Example The first fourteen lines of ''Hudibras'' illustrate the verse form: :When civil dudgeon first grew high, :And men fell out they knew not why; :When hard words, jealousies, and fears, :Set folks together by the ears, :And made them fight, like mad or drunk, :For Dame Religion, as for punk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ned Ward
Ned Ward (1667 – 20 June 1731), also known as Edward Ward, was a satirical writer and publican in the late 17th and early 18th century in London. His most famous work, ''The London Spy'', appeared in 18 monthly instalments from November 1698. It was described by its author as a "complete survey" of the London scene and published in book form in 1703. Biography Early life Ned Ward was born in 1667 in Oxfordshire. According to Theophilus Cibber, Ward was "a man of low extraction... who never received any regular education", but he is likely to have been educated at one of the Oxfordshire grammar schools.Howard William Troyer, ''Ned Ward of Grubstreet; a study of sub-literary London in the eighteenth century'', Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1946. By 1691 Ward had made his way to London. His first publication, ''The Poet's Ramble After Riches'', describes in humorous Hudibrastic couplets his poverty and his disappointment at not receiving an inheritance. Prose satires that followe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mock-heroic
Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature. Typically, mock-heroic works either put a fool in the role of the hero or exaggerate the heroic qualities to such a point that they become absurd. History Historically, the mock-heroic style was popular in 17th-century Italy, and in the post-Restoration and Augustan periods in Great Britain. The earliest example of the form is the ''Batrachomyomachia'' ascribed to Homer by the Romans and parodying his work, but believed by most modern scholars to be the work of an anonymous poet in the time of Alexander the Great. A longstanding assumption on the origin of the mock-heroic in the 17th century is that epic and the pastoral genres had become used up and exhausted,Griffin,Dustin H. (1994) ''Satire: A Critical Reintroduction'p.135/ref> and so they got parodically reprised. In the 17th century the epic genre was heavily criticized, bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treadway Russell Nash
Treadway Russell Nash (24 June 1724 page 459 – 26 January 1811Chambers, p464) was an English clergyman, now known as an early historian of Worcestershire and the author of ''Collections for the History of Worcestershire'', an important source document for Worcestershire county histories. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Early life Treadway Russell Nash was born on 24 June 1724 born at Clerkenleap, in Kempsey, Worcestershire. His family were from Ombersley. They had lands there and at Claines, and had later bought lands in the Reformation around St Peter's, Droitwich. He was related to James Nash and John Nash, both MPs for Worcester. His father Richard, a grandson of Sir Rowland Berkeley, died in 1740, and Richard's eldest son in 1757. As a result, Treadway Russell Nash inherited the Russells' Strensham estates from his brother, as well as the Nash estates, and took both names. He was educated from the age of twelve at King's School, Worcester, and b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Quixote
is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Western literature, it is often labelled as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works ever written. ''Don Quixote'' is also one of the most-translated books in the world. The plot revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, an hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he either loses or pretends to have lost his mind in order to become a knight-errant () to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name . He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical monologues on knighthood, already considered old-fashioned at the time, and representing the most droll realism in contr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zachary Grey
Zachary Grey (6 May 1688 – 1766) was an English priest, controversialist, and conservative spokesman for the Church of England. He was also an editor, commentator on William Shakespeare, and critic of dissenter historians. Life Grey was the son of an Anglican priest and graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, getting his LL.B. in 1709 and LL.D. in 1720. He was ordained a priest by the Bishop of London in 1711, and he left Cambridge to take up two livings: Houghton Conquest in Bedfordshire in 1725, and the parish of St Giles' and St Peter's in Cambridge. He served in Cambridge during the winter months and lived most of the year in the town of Ampthill, which put him near Houghton Conquest. Grey had a first marriage that ended quickly, and then he married Susanna Hatton, daughter of a Cambridge tavern keeper, in 1720, and the couple had two daughters to survive, and both of these married clergy. Grey died in Ampthill in 1766 and was buried at his church in Houghton Conque ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean (Christianity), Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift". Swift is remembered for works such as ''A Tale of a Tub'' (1704), ''An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity'' (1712), ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1726), and ''A Modest Proposal'' (1729). He is regarded by the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Satire#Classifications, Horatian and Juvenalian styles. His deadpan, ironic writing style, partic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Cotton
Charles Cotton (28 April 1630 – 16 February 1687) was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to ''The Compleat Angler'', and for the influential ''The Compleat Gamester'' attributed to him. Early life He was born in Alstonefield, Staffordshire, at Beresford Hall, near the Derbyshire Peak District. His father, Charles Cotton the Elder, was a friend of Ben Jonson, John Selden, Sir Henry Wotton and Izaak Walton. The son was apparently not sent to university, but was tutored by Ralph Rawson, one of the fellows ejected from Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1648. Cotton travelled in France and perhaps in Italy, and at the age of twenty-eight he succeeded to an estate greatly encumbered by lawsuits during his father's lifetime. Like many Royalist gentlemen after the English Civil War the rest of his life was spent chiefly in quiet country pursuits, in Cotton's case in the Peak District and North Staf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Gestis Britonum
''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons over the course of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of much of Britain around the 7th century. It is one of the central pieces of the Matter of Britain. Although taken as historical well into the 16th century, it is now considered to have no value as history. When events described, such as Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain, can be corroborated from contemporary histories, Geoffrey's account can be seen to be wildly inaccurate. It remains, however, a valuable piece of medieval literature, which contains the earliest known version of the story of King Lear and his three daughters, and helped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Rayney Waller
Alfred Rayney Waller (1867, York – 1922) was an English journalist and man of letters, known as the co-editor-in-chief with A. W. Ward of ''The Cambridge History of English Literature''. A. R. Waller received an M.A. from Peterhouse, Cambridge. He worked from 1888 to 1902 as a journalist and literary editor in London. He was for a number of years Secretary to the Syndics of Cambridge University Press. He edited John Florio's ''Montaigne'', 6 volumes, 1897. With Arnold Glover he edited the collected works of William Hazlitt, 13 volumes, 1902–1906. Waller translated Molière's plays, 8 volumes, 1902–1907. He also edited the works of Samuel Butler, Abraham Cowley, Richard Crashaw, and Matthew Prior Matthew Prior (21 July 1664 – 18 September 1721) was an English poet and diplomat. He is also known as a contributor to '' The Examiner''. Early life Prior was probably born in Middlesex. He was the son of a Nonconformist joiner at Wimborne ..., 1904–1905. Waller and A. W. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
