Poetaster , like rhymester or versifier, is a derogatory term applied to bad or inferior

poets A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. Specifically, ''poetaster'' has implications of unwarranted pretensions to artistic value. The word was coined in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...

in 1521. It was first used in English by

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

in his 1600 play ''

Cynthia's Revels ''Cynthia's Revels, or The Fountain of Self-Love'' is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson. The play was one element in the ''Poetomachia'' or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and ...

''; immediately afterwards Jonson chose it as the title of his 1601 play ''

Poetaster Poetaster , like rhymester or versifier, is a derogatory term applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, ''poetaster'' has implications of unwarranted pretensions to artistic value. The word was coined in Latin by Erasmus in 1521. It was fi ...

.'' In that play the "poetaster" character is a satire on John Marston, one of Jonson's rivals in the Poetomachia or

War of the Theatres The War of the Theatres is the name commonly applied to a controversy from the later Elizabethan theatre; Thomas Dekker termed it the ''Poetomachia''. Because of an actual ban on satire in prose and verse publications in 1599 (the Bishops' Ban of ...

Usage

While ''poetaster'' has always been a negative appraisal of a poet's skills, ''rhymester'' (or ''rhymer'') and ''versifier'' have held ambiguous meanings depending on the commentator's opinion of a writer's verse. ''Versifier'' is often used to refer to someone who produces work in verse with the implication that while technically able to make lines rhyme they have no real talent for poetry. Rhymer on the other hand is usually impolite despite attempts to salvage the reputation of rhymers such as the

Rhymers' Club The Rhymers' Club was a group of London-based male poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894.''The Oxford Companion to English Literature' ...

and Rhymer being a common last name. The faults of a poetaster frequently include errors or lapses in their work's meter, badly rhyming words which jar rather than flow, oversentimentality, too much use of the

pathetic fallacy The phrase pathetic fallacy is a literary term for the attribution of human emotion and conduct to things found in nature that are not human. It is a kind of personification that occurs in poetic descriptions, when, for example, clouds seem sullen ...

and unintentionally bathetic choice of subject matter. Although a mundane subject in the hands of some great poets can be raised to the level of art, such as ''

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" is a sonnet written by the English Romantic poet John Keats (1795–1821) in October 1816. It tells of the author's astonishment while he was reading the works of the ancient Greek poet Homer, who was fre ...

'' by

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

or '' Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes'' by

Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classics, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his ''Elegy Written in a Country ...

, others merely produce bizarre poems on bizarre subjects, an example being James McIntyre, who wrote mainly of cheese. Other poets often regarded as poetasters are

William Topaz McGonagall William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish descent. He gained notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work. He wrote about 2 ...

, Julia A. Moore,

Edgar Guest Edgar Albert Guest (20 August 1881 – 5 August 1959) was a British-born American poet who became known as the People's Poet. His poems often had an inspirational and optimistic view of everyday life. Early life Guest was born in Birmingham ...

, J. Gordon Coogler,

Dmitry Khvostov Count Dmitry Ivanovich Khvostov (russian: граф Дми́трий Ива́нович Хвосто́в, – ), was a Russian poet, representing the late period of classicism in Russian literature. Count Khvostov, as he was widely known, was an ...

, and

Alfred Austin Alfred Austin (30 May 1835 – 2 June 1913) was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or refused the honour. It was cl ...

. Austin, despite having been a British

poet laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...

, is nevertheless regarded as greatly inferior to his predecessor,

Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

. Austin was frequently mocked during his career and is little read today. The American poet

Joyce Kilmer Alfred Joyce Kilmer (December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918) was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled "Trees" (1913), which was published in the collection ''Trees and Other Poems'' in 1914. Though a prolific poet who ...

(1886–1918), known for his 1913 poem "Trees", is often criticized for his overly sentimental and traditional verse written at the dawn of

Modernist poetry Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases ...

, although some of his poems are frequently anthologized and retain enduring popular appeal. "Trees" has been parodied innumerable times, including by

Ogden Nash Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet well known for his light verse, of which he wrote over 500 pieces. With his unconventional rhyming schemes, he was declared by ''The New York Times'' the country's best ...

.Nash, Ogden. "Song of the Open Road" first published in ''Argosy''. Vol. 12 No. 8. (July 1951), 63.

Modern use

Musician

Joanna Newsom Joanna Newsom (born January 18, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Born and raised in Northern California, Newsom was classically trained on the harp in her youth and began her musical career as a keyboardist in the San Francisc ...

on the album ''The Milk-eyed Mender'' uses the term to refer to a struggling narrator wracked with ambition to create beautiful poetry in a verse from "Inflammatory Writ": :And as for my inflammatory writ? :Well, I wrote it and I was not inflamed one bit. :Advice from the master derailed that disaster; :he said "Hand that pen over to me, poetaster" Rapper

Big Daddy Kane Antonio Hardy (born September 10, 1968), better known by his stage name Big Daddy Kane, is an American rapper who began his career in 1986 as a member of the Juice Crew. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential and skilled MCs in hi ...

uses an adjectival form as an insult in his song "Uncut, Pure": :Your poetasterous style it plain bore me :Pardon the vainglory, but here's the Kane story The band

Miracle Fortress Miracle Fortress is a Canadian indie rock band based in Montreal, Quebec. The band's studio work is primarily a solo, project of songwriter Graham Van Pelt, who is accompanied by the rest of the band during live shows. Band history Van Pelt, a m ...

has a song entitled "Poetaster".

Variants

In the sense that a poetaster is a pretended poet, John Marston coined the term ''parasitaster,'' for one who pretends to be a parasite or sycophant, in his play ''

Parasitaster, or The Fawn ''Parasitaster, or The Fawn'' is an early Jacobean play, written by the dramatist and satirist John Marston, probably in 1604, and performed by the Children of the Queen's Revels in the Blackfriars Theatre. The play is one of several written ...

'' (1604). Later in the 17th century (the earliest cited use is from 1684) appeared the term ''criticaster'' for an inferior and pretentious critic.

References

{{Reflist Poets Incompetence

Usage

Modern use

Variants

See also

References